Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – Bowing to pressure from anticorruption groups, the Supreme Court has revoked its earlier decision to appoint 12 new judges to the Corruption Court.
"I've ordered the withdrawal of all the letters of appointment," Supreme Court Chief Harifin A. Tumpa told reporters on Friday, after installing six new deputy heads to the Supreme Court.
The cancellation came after protests from antigraft groups against the questionable track records of some of the new judges assigned to the Corruption Court.
The legal procedure for the appointments was also criticized. The activists said it was against the 2002 Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) law, which obliges the Supreme Court to make public candidates for Corruption Court judges.
Harifin admitted that there were several violations in the appointment process. "I just read the law. In fact we had published it in our website but there are several procedures that we missed in the process. That's why I have to decided to withdraw the letters [of appointment]."
The chief justice said the withdrawal was allowed because the letters stipulated the decision was subject to change if it was found to contain a mistake.
The Supreme Court announced the appointment of 12 judges to the Central Jakarta District Court and nine others to the Jakarta High Court on its website on April 12, 2009.
Six of the new judges were set to receive what is seen as a promotion to the Corruption Court, which is overseen by the Central Jakarta District Court.
The six judges to be replaced would have gone on to new positions: Gusrizal to head Bogor District Court, Kresna Menon to chair the Bandung District Court, Sutiono to lead the Sumedang District Court, Moefri to head the Sampit District Court as well as Teguh Haryanto and Martini Mardja who were to get new positions as deputy heads of the Tulungagung District Court and the Kayu Agung District Court, respectively. These moves have now been put on hold.
However, their replacements were opposed by Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) and other critics because they had ever acquitted several corruption suspects.
"Six of the new judges had acquitted corruption defendants and we never knew whether they [the defendants] really deserved acquittals or if it was because the judges failed to understand corruption cases, which were probably related with the poor indictment by prosecutors, or this was related to judicial mafia," ICW legal researcher Febri Diansyah said.
However, Harifin refused to consider acquittal a criteria to appraise the performance of judges. "Acquittal is not forbidden in our judicial system. If judges really find the defendant not guilty why should they be punished?"
He said the six current judges were to be "promoted for regeneration" at the Corruption Court. "Their career will not develop if they remain in the court, besides we consider there are many good judges out there who can replace them," Harifin said.
In response, ICW activist Illian Deta Arta Sari on Friday lauded Harifin's decision to revoke the candidacy of the six replacement for the Corruption Court judges. "We expect the Supreme Court will not repeat the same mistake," she said.