Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) reported 106 "troubled" judges to the Judicial Commission on Tuesday citing their tendency to acquit or hand down lenient sentences to corruption suspects.
ICW legal and judicial supervisory division coordinator, Ilian Deta Arta Sari, said one of the judges had acquitted 35 corruption defendants in one year.
"Is it a hobby or a habit?" she asked reporters at the Judicial Commission building.
The tendency to acquit corruption defendants took place in almost all district courts throughout the nation as well as the high court and Supreme Court levels, ICW said.
ICW found that in 2009, more than 200 out of 378 corruption suspects, or 59.25 percent, have been acquitted by the courts, with only 154 being found guilty.
ICW pointed out two unnamed Supreme Court justices included in the list of judges who have acquitted corruption suspects without clear reasons.
Unfortunately, the sentences given to guilty defendants were also toothless as deterrents because 82 of the corruption defendants (21.69 percent) received prison sentences of less than a year, 23 were sentenced to up to two years, 26 received sentences of up to five years and six defendants received up to 10 years in prison.
"Only one of them got more than 10 years in prison," ICW deputy coordinator Emerson Yuntho said.
He added the main point of concern was that 16 of the defendants were given suspended sentences.
The number increased compared to the previous year (2008), which saw suspended sentences handed out to 10 defendants. Three justices, yet again unnamed by ICW, handed down the suspended sentences.
"We get the impression that giving a suspended sentence is merely a formality when dealing with corruption convicts," Emerson said.
Previously, the chief justice had sent a letter to ICW denying the allegations against his institution and said ICW's data was invalid.
However, Illian emphasized it was the Supreme Court's data that was invalid.
"The Supreme Court said there were no suspended sentence handed down in 2009," she said.
"On the contrary, we found 16 suspended rulings that have been published or aired by the media."
She added ICW would send their data to the Supreme Court.
In response to its findings, ICW asked the commission to summon the 106 judges to be questioned in relation to their rulings and recommended the judges be dismissed should the commission find any violations.
Commissioner Zainal Arifin said his office would follow up the report by conducting a plenary meeting with other commissioners.
"We will evaluate the report and observe whether there was anything untoward in the rulings to determine the judges who are the bad apples," he told The Jakarta Post.
Previously, Judicial Commission chief Busyro Muqoddas said the commission had planned to summon 62 judges whose rulings were considered to be controversial and problematic.
He said the commission had received 968 public complaints of problematic rulings nationwide last year.
As of Dec. 1, 2009, the Judicial Commission has recommended 28 contentious rulings be re-evaluated by the Supreme Court, but none of them have been followed up.