Ina Parlina, Jakarta – In September 2008, Indonesia's judicial system was ranked the worst in Asia by a Hong Kong-based consulting firm that dubbed the country's judiciary as one of "the weakest and most controversial institutions".

Not only is it perceived as entangled in corruption, the lack of competent justices has made it difficult for the highest judicial authority in the country to give its best performance.

Court chief justice Harifin Tumpa, who replaced Bagir Manan in 2009, was aware of such criticism and said he planned to take a few major reform steps this year to improve the court's image.

Harifin said Thursday that by the end of the year he would limit the number of cases on appeal that would be handled by the court and implement what he called a "chamber system" in which justices with a certain expertise would adjudicate cases they were most familiar with.

He argued that with only 51 justices in office, the court was overwhelmed by the surging number of cases on appeal; and, currently, each justice handled all kinds of cases, regardless of their expertise.

The result is at best a sluggish adjudication process and at worst poor quality verdicts, he said. The court is known for its sluggish work. The widow of slain activist Munir Said Thalib, for instance, had to wait for two years to receive a verdict on her appeal against flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, which she accused of negligence that led the murder of her husband.

The ruling on the case, which was filed by Garuda in 2008, was issued in January 2010, but Suciwati only knew about in February this year. The court rejected Garuda's appeal and ordered the company to Munir's widow Rp 3,8 billion (US$433,200) in compensation.

The chamber system, along with other measures, will hopefully solve the problem, Harifin said.

"This means that each justice will only handle cases in accordance to their background knowledge and experience," he said, adding that the target was that each case was handled by the right person with the right level of competency.

Imposing the system will also reduce disparity in the quality of rulings issued by the court. "This will definitely improve the quality of our verdicts, as well as facilitate monitoring of those verdicts."

Harifin believed the system would improve justices' expertise. He added that there was a possibility to also include the subchamber system, especially to the handling of specific offenses that require specific tribunals. "Such specific offenses or specific tribunals, including corruption tribunals and human rights tribunals, need a certain skill; not all justices have it."

However, he reminded that, "The surging number of cases of appeals will always be a problem."

He said that a case that only saw a one-year imprisonment sentence or less would not be handled by the Supreme Court. Case review requests are to later be handled by lower courts in each region.

The chief justice said not all cases were significant enough to be taken to cassation level. "Divorce cases, inheritance and wills disputes can be solved adequately in an appeal; don't bring them to a cassation appeal," he said.

Court data shows that there were 22,315 cases to be solved by the court in 2010. The court managed to cast its rulings for only 13,885 cases and left the remaining 8,424 to be processed this year. Those cases include the handling of case reviews, leniency requests, judicial reviews and cassation appeals.

As a comparison, in 2009, the court managed to solve 11,985 cases from a total of 21,375 cases.

Legal expert lauded Harifin's reform measures. "This is a good plan to boost the quality of the court," Former Constitutional Court chief Jimly Asshiddiqie told The Jakarta Post.

"An ideal number of chambers is five: the criminal, civil, religion, administration and military chambers," he said.

He lamented that the current system, which recognized a panel of three justices, failed to assign each justice to practice their respective expertise. "A justice with expertise in criminal cases handles a civic case. It's ridiculous. I wonder what the quality of the verdict will be."