Camelia Pasandaran – The Constitutional Court chief said on Wednesday that he is concerned about the absence of a supervisory board for judges at the court.

"I worry about this current situation where the Constitutional Court judges are not included among the judges that are under the supervision of the Judicial Commission," Mahfud said.

Mahfud said that the current batch of judges have good reputation, but issues of integrity may be raised in the future.

"As we are further distanced from the history [of the court], people tend to lose idealism," he said. "I'm afraid that Constitutional Court judges in the future will go the wrong way."

"Current judges now have high quality and morality. A watchdog will keep the quality high."

Mahfud said that the best way to establish a watchdog is to amend the Constitution to allow the Judicial Commission to have the right to also supervise Constitutional Court judges.

Besides strategic plans to amend the law, Mahfud said that he had also proposed a tactical plan where the court judges would not be selected by lawmakers, but by an independent body.

"This way, the judges will not be part of any political conspiracies in the House [of Representatives]," he said.

Lili Romli, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), said that the Constitutional Court is currently one of the only bodies in the country that is well respected by the public.

"The public now have high expectations of the Constitutional Court," he said.