Jakarta – A team of independent experts says a law now being drafted which will establish an independent anti-corruption court should provide for ad-hoc judges and a body for managing corruption-linked assets.
The task force, comprising academics, law professionals, and non-government organizations, said ad-hoc judges were key to making the court impartial and garnering public trust.
"There is a huge distrust in society of the running of conventional courts and the reputation of career judges who often acquit alleged offenders despite overwhelming proof," task force member Abdul Fickar Hadjar told a public discussion here Friday.
"The presence of three ad-hoc, non-career judges on the proposed five-member panel should ease the public's misgivings," he said.
Another speaker, I Made Hendra Kusuma, who is an ad-hoc anti-corruption judge at the Central Jakarta District Court, concurred.
"We have to acknowledge that the public is really fed up with the conventional legal system," Hendra said. "Having ad-hoc judges serving on the panel who aren't law practitioners, but experienced professionals nonetheless, should complement the shortcomings of conventional judges."
According to Fickar, the draft law was meant to pave the way for an independent anti-corruption court with special jurisdiction which would extend to corruption cases previously handled in district and high courts.
Fickar explained this would not be Indonesia's first anti-corruption court. However, the Constitutional Court had annulled the statute establishing the previous court in December last year, he said.
"We were then given three years to draft a new law which would govern an anti-corruption court that would serve as a legal gateway through which Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators and state prosecutors could meet and for the first time try corruption-related cases."
Additionally, the draft law provides for a special body to collect assets seized from convicted corruptors, he said.
"In some cases, the seized assets are not cash, but rather companies and investments. So, we need a special body to manage all lost state assets."
Another element introduced into the draft law is a clause calling for a preliminary investigation process.
"In the preliminary investigation procedure, the judges would get to examine whether a case has enough proof to process. If not, then the case would be returned to the prosecutor's office to complete," Fickar said.
He added that the preliminary investigation process would be based on the UN Convention against Corruption which provides for sentence reduction for cooperating in the prosecution of co-defendants. (amr)