Jakarta – The Supreme Court and the Attorney General's Office (AGO) should administer better information systems to disclose online statistics of cases they handle to pave the way for judicial reform, experts say.
Both institutions are deemed to have failed to provide comprehensive facts and statistics on cases they handle across the country. They provide data on their websites, but experts doubt it could be used as barometer to assess whether the justice system works, or if it is even capable of providing basic legal services.
They argued that without public awareness of the court system, including its strengths and weaknesses, which can only be obtained through the provision of a comprehensive information system, the judicial system is less likely to improve.
"The lack of availability of reliable statistical judiciary data, especially coming from the two institutions, has hampered the transparency of judicial processes," Judicial Data Center representative Astriyani said during a seminar on Justice Statistical Data Utilization in Policy Making on Monday.
The Judicial Data Center, along with the National Development Planning Ministry and the Indonesia-Netherlands National Legal Reform Program, launched two books on Law Enforcement Statistic 2007 and 2008 to provide a better picture of the Indonesian judicial system.
The books disclose nationwide facts and statistics on the execution of the duties and the authority of the courts, the AGO and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The information includes cases and investigations, as well as public complaints. The books also contain human resources statistics.
The team of authors behind the books found that information they collected sometimes did not add up. They found data inconsistencies coming from official sources caused by poor reporting mechanisms.
For example, they found that a number of indictment cases from the AGO did not match the trial numbers from the Supreme Court.
Information on court rulings can be used to study the quality of a verdict and its social, economic, cultural and psychological effects on the public, while information on trial processes can be used to monitor the quality of a trial.
Currently, only the Constitutional Court released its hearings sessions to the public and uploaded them on their website. They also logged case statistics on their website, www.mahkamahkonstitusi.go.id.
The KPK, on the other hand, has also disclosed its cases on its website www.kpk.go.id, including the corruption court's verdicts and case profiles, but failed to present them case by case. The recapitulation of these cases is presented in their annual reports, which can be downloaded from the website.
Information about human resources can be used to monitor the track records of judicial staff members, which in turn could serve to improve their performances, an expert said.
Indonesian Press Council chairman and former Supreme Court chief Bagir Manan said that disclosure of such facts and statistics was important for internal assessment of performance and budgeting.
"Therefore, no budget would be wasted and there wouldn't be budget shortages," he said.
Director of law and human rights at the National Development Planning Ministry (BAPPENAS) Diani Sadiawati shared the same view. "Their data input management even for themselves is dreadful, let alone disclosing data on a website. One of the challenges is how to use the data that is actually there," she said.
The Supreme Court and the AGO handle more than 50,000 cases nationwide each year, compared to the KPK, which investigates around 40 cases a year. However, this was not an excuse, experts said.
Former KPK deputy chief for 2003-2007 Amien Sunaryadi said that the KPK had successfully reformed its information system by providing for good human resources and good information technology (IT) people.
"The initiative came from us. Therefore, regardless of the huge number of cases compared to the KPK, both the Supreme Court and the AGO could always use the same approach in reforming their systems," he said.
Former Constitutional Court chief of justice Jimly Asshiddiqie emphasized that good leadership with an excellent sense of management was needed to administer such disclosure.
"The technology is already there; the problem is that no one senses the importance of such information – not to mention many still think there is no urgency in delivering or interpreting such data," he said. (ipa)