Wanted: Clean judges

Wanted: Clean judges

The more Indonesia strives to become a state based on law, it
seems, the more we find that the country is sorely lacking in
good and honest judges to administer the courts. This may come
across as pathetic but, unfortunately, it is a sad reality.

The House of Representatives, for the first time empowered to
screen candidates wanting to serve as justices of the Supreme
Court, this week came up with only 17 names to fill the existing
20 vacancies. Some of the selected 17 candidates, who were picked
from a pack of 46, apparently just made it through the "fit-and-
proper test". Insiders disclosed that even some of these
candidates would have flunked the test were it not for the
political support they received from some within the House.

Many of the 46 tested candidates failed on the question of
moral integrity. Ironically, they were mostly career judges who
have spent years administering the lower courts of law. On the
question of whether it was proper that judges accept gifts in
relation to legal cases they have tried, they typically answered
that the practice was acceptable as long as the gifts were given
after a verdict had been passed. We suspect that most had given
this answer because they have all, at some stage during their
legal career, taken gifts as gratitude for favorable verdicts.

This seems to be the kind of corrupt mentality that is
prevailing among the administrators of the courts in Indonesia.
If senior judges regard taking gifts as acceptable, we hate to
think what many of their juniors, whose careers depend on them,
are doing. It is no wonder that there is so much public contempt
for the country's courts, especially the judges, which are
supposed to be the last bastion of justice.

We should be thankful to the House for exposing a gross flaw
in the legal system: that it is so damn difficult to find a good
and honest judge in this country. If the country's legal system
is in a state of complete disarray today, we know the real reason
why. It is not so much that the laws or the system is flawed. It
is the people who run the country's courts that need to be
reformed, or better still, replaced.

Now that the House has submitted the 17 names to President
Abdurrahman Wahid, we implore the head of state to use his
discretion to thoroughly screen them before making his final
selection. As strong as the pressure is on the President to fill
the 20 vacancies in the Supreme Court, he should not be forced to
select all 17 names that have been proposed by the House,
especially since some of them are also morally flawed. The
President could ask for the transcript of the "fit-and-proper
test" conducted on the 17 candidates from the House and go over
their answers once more before making his decision.

With mountains of appeal cases piling up in the Supreme Court,
there is bound to be strong pressure for the President to quickly
fill the quota. But he would commit a grave error, and would
betray the ideals of the reform movement, if he allowed people
with corrupt mentalities to serve in the highest court.

Legal reform is just as important as political reform as
Indonesia strives to build a democratic civil society. Now that
we know that the legal system is very corrupt, what better way of
starting to reform the system than by replacing the top people
who administer the country's highest court before working
downward to reform the entire system.

By the looks of it, we will have to replace all the other 31
justices currently serving in the Supreme Court -- who are a
legacy of the old corrupt regime -- as soon as we fill the
current 20 vacancies. The House, after its commendable work,
should already be working on the next batch of candidates. The
fact that there aren't many good and honest judges around in this
country makes the search even more imperative and urgent.