Agus Triyono – Revealing that it had kept convicted Central Jakarta Commercial Court Judge Syarifudin Umar under surveillance for three years, the Judicial Commission says it has another, unnamed miscreant judge in its sights "in a certain major city."
Judicial Commission head Eman Suparman said the judge, under intensive monitoring, was in addition to 10 other justices the body announced it was watching since July.
"I don't know about any developments regarding the previous 10, but right now I am concentrating on one particular judge," Eman said after a workshop with journalists in Bandung.
Without wanting to give details that might tip the judge off, Eman said the judge was handling a civil lawsuit.
"In wiretapping this judge, we have used the Judicial Commission's regional network, because the individual frequently changes mobile phones. The target used to work in Java but has now been moved elsewhere," Eman said.
He said the 10 unnamed judges who were said to have been under surveillance in July each came to the attention of the judicial watchdog body via tip-offs by members of the public.
"Spying on crooked judges isn't a snap. It takes time, as it did in the case of Syarifudin Umar, who we had under surveillance for three years. We must be patient," Eman said.
Eman's revelation means Syarifudin had been wiretapped since the days when the Judicial Commission was under the leadership of Busyro Muqoddas, who is now the head of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
"When Syarifudin was arrested, everything was totally prepared – the arrestee had certainly taken bribes, it wasn't just based on suspicion. In fact, his behavior didn't change over the whole three years he was under surveillance, from initial suspicions to the day we picked him up," Eman said.
Syarifudin was arrested at his home in Sunter, North Jakarta, as he took possession of a Rp 250 million ($28,000) bribe from Puguh Wirayawan, the bankruptcy trustee of garment maker Skycamping Indonesia, in exchange for help unfreezing land assets worth Rp 35 billion.
The secretary general of the Judicial Commission, Muzayyin Mahbub, said the oversight body had received thousands of complaints and tip-offs of corrupt behavior by judges.
"Based on data from August 2005 to September 2011, the Judicial Commission has received as many as 11,783 reports from the public," Muzayyin said, according to state news agency Antara.
According to Muzayyin, of the 11,783 complaints received, 2,487 case files had been opened.
Not every case could be followed up, he said, because often complaints did not allege any clear transgressions of the rules governing judges' behavior.
"But a large number of them can be acted on because they contain elements of breaches of judicial ethics," he said.
The large number of complaints, the secretary general said, was a good thing, indicative of the public's enthusiasm to fight corruption and demand judicial responsibility.
He said the commission was busy reviewing decisions by judges in the Anti-Corruption Court. "The investigation will be focussed on the recently emerged sticking points in the Anti-Corruption Court," Muzayyin said.
The recent spate of not-guilty verdicts in graft cases heard before regional anticorruption courts had spurred the review. "There are four big cities – Surabaya, Jakarta, Bandung and Semarang – where we will conduct investigations," he said.
He added that the Judicial Commission was unsure of the reason behind the recent spate of graft acquittals. "It's probably due to multiple factors. That's exactly why we are going to look into problems in the anticorruption courts," Muzayyin said.
Meanwhile, Suparman Marzuki, the head of judicial monitoring and investigation at the commission, said the country's judicial system faced four main problems.
The first was excessive meddling by the executive branch, resulting in a lack of independence, Suparman said. The second was the confusing legislative regime governing courts and judges. Human resources was the third problem he mentioned, in particular a shortage of judges and court staff. The fourth problem, he said, was poor infrastructure and low wages.