Jakarta – Indonesian corruption fighters on Monday slammed the Supreme Court's dissolution of an anti-graft team as an attempt by judges to protect themselves and a setback to efforts to clean-up Indonesia's judiciary.
The Supreme Court annulled a regulation that established the Joint Anti-Corruption Team – which was targetting several Supreme Court justices – on March 23, according to the Jakarta Post.
Defending the decision, deputy chief justice for administration, Paulus Lotulung said the regulation was annulled because it contradicted a 1999 law on corruption, the Post reported.
But Kastorius Sinaga, vice chairman of anti-corruption organisation Gempita, branded the court's move "political." "... because [former joint team chief] Adi Andoyo Sucipto was trying to bring some Supreme Court judges to court for corruption cases they were allegedly involved in," he told AFP.
"This is like an act of solidarity by the Supreme Court because Adi [Sucipto] had actually attacked the court as an institution." Sinaga also said the 48-member Supreme Court was acting out of its jurisdiction by annulling the regulation. "It is inappropriate for the court to cancel this team because it was originally set up by the attorney general's office (AG0), so it should only be the AGO that can dissolve it," he said.
The Indonesian Institute for an Independent Judiciary accused the court of feeling "threatened." The anti-graft team had been "prioritising efforts to combat the practice of corruption, collusion and nepotism in the Supreme Court," the institute's Rifqi Assegaf told the Post.
The regulation annulled by the court had empowered the team to coordinate the investigation and prosecution of difficult-to-prove corruption cases. Sucipto, who quit the team last month in protest at the lack of political support, condemned the court's decision.
"Corruption is an endemic disease which must be combatted with extraordinary methods," he said on Indosiar private television.
President Abdurrahman Wahid made the fight against corruption a key pledge when he was elected almost 18 months ago. Many of those efforts have been frustrated in the courts, where corruption cases have been thrown out on grounds ranging from technical to illness, or have been handed light sentences.
But new Justice and Human Rights Minister Baharuddin Lopa has signalled a tougher attitude. Within days of Lopa's appointment, former finance minister and close associate of ex-president Suharto, Bob Hasan, saw his home detention for corruption revert back to imprisonment, and he was last week transferred to a notoriously-harsh prison island south of Java.