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.