Indonesia's efforts to reform its judiciary could face another blow if the parliament passes a bill that would bar non -career judges from sitting on the Supreme Court bench. Often portrayed as corrupt, dysfunctional and ineffective .... an attempt was made in 2000 to change that image.

Non-career judges were brought into the Supreme Court in a bid to develop a more independent and clean judiciary.

Presenter/Interviewer: Kanaha Sabapathy Speakers: Zacky Husein, Director of Law Programs, Asia Foundation Jakarta.

Husein: There is still a lot of trust if you will in the judiciary. We did a survey on the perception of the citizen on the judiciary and the level of acceptance or the level of trust or confidence in the court is still quite high.

Sabapathy: In 2000 there was a move to try and create greater transparency within the judiciary and to that extent there was the introduction of non-career judges onto the justice system. To what extent has that helped?

Husein: It has helped a lot I think. If anything the pool of people from the non-career have brought new blood to the judiciary, and with that they've brought a lot of new initiatives to the court. The new Chief Justice now is a non-career justice, he was previously an academic and he served also as a director general at the Ministry of Justice. He's now making it clear that decision of the court should be accessible by all the people and not just for the parties who are contesting at the court. How this is actually being operationalised is another thing, but from the leadership there's already that statement coming up. It is something that is a complete 360-degree change from the previous chief justice for example.

Sabapathy: The parliament is now looking at changing the law that would bar non-career judges from being appointed to the Supreme Court bench. Would this be a blow to judicial reform?

Husein: Well you have to look at it from two levels. I think there is a continuing struggle within the judiciary from the reformist camp and from those who like the status quo. You can just imagine it's career judiciary system here in Indonesia, and so every judge who has studied at the district court level would want to one day become a Supreme Court justice. Also the non-career are not performing any better than the career justices. You need to select them more carefully, not only from the integrity point of view, but also those that can actually do the job so they have the managerial capacity as well.

Sabapathy: The Supreme Court itself launched a blueprint if I'm not mistaken in October. What's important about this blueprint?

Husein: It is for the first time in the history of the judiciary that they've been able to come up with a comprehensive, tackle problems at the judiciary. So that in itself is important. It sets a framework for them to work and then to achieve it in a certain timeframe. The process for putting together was also important because it was not only conducted internally, but it involves an outside Indonesian NGO called the Institute for the Independence of the Judiciary. So the final outcome of the blueprint reflects thinking from both inside and outside of the court. So it represented more of a document that stakeholders can buy into. It also sets a framework for a donor system, so donors can be more disciplined in offering their assistance to the court because there's a list of things that they can refer to, as opposed to before coming in and offering a lot of interesting things to the court, which the court might not necessarily need. So it helps discipline the donor as well.