The Indonesian government says it is considering disbanding regional Anti-Corruption Courts following a number of verdicts where corruption suspects have been cleared.

Denny Indrayana, the deputy justice and human rights minister, said on Saturday that ministry officials had held talks with members of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) about reverting to a centralized Anti-Corruption Court in Jakarta. He said the decision related to a number of controversial verdicts.

In the latest case, an antigraft court in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, acquitted four of the 15 graft defendants on Oct. 1 in a case of embezzlement of operation funds of the Kutai Kartanegara district budget worth Rp 2.98 billion ($334,000).

And an antigraft court in Bandung recently acquitted the suspended mayor of Bekasi, even though other courts had already found his underlings guilty of corruption in related cases.

Denny said the ministry was discussing and analyzing the possibility of disbanding the regional courts. The Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court has never delivered a not guilty verdict.

KPK chairman Busyro Muqoddas said on Thursday that the regional courts needed to be evaluated without delay. Outspoken Constitutional Court chief Mahfud M.D. has been more direct on the issue, calling for the courts outside Jakarta to be disbanded.

He said regional judges were often underperformers who lacked knowledge about the law and were poorly supervised. KPK deputy chairman Bibit Samad Rianto said the 2009 law was at the core of the problem and needed to be reviewed.

He said that while it was true that monitoring regional courts was difficult, without them, the central Anti-Corruption Court would be overwhelmed. (Antara/JG)