Yuli Krisna, Bandung – The arrest in October of Akil Mochtar, recently dismissed as the chief justice of the Constitutional Court, for alleged bribery has severely damaged the nation's trust in every level of the judiciary and exposed just how deeply ingrained in the system the so-called judicial mafia has become.

The widening investigation, which has led to the arrest of a half-dozen other figures but no other judges so far, is likely to become an issue in next year's elections.

The Constitutional Court was set up in 1999, after the long-ruling authoritarian president Suharto was toppled from power, as part of reforms intended to free courts from political interference.

Much of its work involves ruling on disputed local elections, and following the landmark decentralization measures of 2001 giving significant powers to local politicians, the stakes in local elections are much higher.

The judicial mafia – a loosely defined network of fixers, lawyers and judges colluding to manipulate charges and rulings – is not an alien concept term in the Indonesian legal system.

The government has been trying to fight against the practice by establishing several external institutions including the Judicial Commission, an Ombudsman and the National Police Commission, to no avail, because the judicial mafia appears to be getting stronger by the day.

The tale of the case brokers

Amrullah, a former civil servant at the directorate general of marine transportation assigned to the Makassar Port Authority in South Sulawesi, was one official who turned to the judicial mafia after being accused of conspiring to commit corruption in 2005.

"I was only an employee assigned to help a superior who had access to the operational budget. Everything I did, the implementation and the operation of the project, was based on orders from my superior," he told the Jakarta Globe.

Amrullah was accused of manipulating the budget for the construction of Awerange Port. A court found him guilty and he was sent to prison.

He decided to challenge the verdict and filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. A friend later introduced him to Sufiana, a junior court clerk at the South Jakarta District Court.

"He said he could help me with my legal problem, but I had to pay him Rp 150 million [$12,600]. But I only managed to collect Rp 130 million," he said.

Amrullah wired the money in four transactions to Sufiana's bank account. He said Sufiana promised he would return the money if he was unable to keep Amrullah from going to prison.

Amrullah's appeal was denied by the Supreme Court and he had to serve his time. To make things worse, Sufiana only returned Rp 30 million. "I hope he will return the money because I owe it to friends and relatives," the convict said.

Now out of jail, Amrullah is jobless. He is fighting to get his job back by filing a challenge against the Transportation Ministry's decision to fire him.

Sufiana, who now works at the Bekasi District Court, denied the allegations. "Absolutely not true. I have never dealt with such a case, in this court or any other," he said. He claimed he did not know Amrullah and had never met him, let alone offered to rig a case for him.

M. Rozi Wahab, a spokesman for the Bekasi District Court, said the court imposed strict sanctions on any employee implicated in such practices, including reporting any indications of violation to the Supreme Court's supervisory body.

"If proven to be guilty, anyone, be it a judge, court clerk or any other staff, will be punished and the case will be exposed and uploaded to our website," he said.

Rozi declined to say if such practices took place at the Bekasi court. "Let the public be the judge, we can't comment on that. The practice might exist, in different sizes of course," he said.

A local journalist who has covered the court beat for several years said most illicit activities related to court cases in Bekasi happened outside the court, making them difficult to trace.

"Many cases don't even reach the court because a deal has been struck outside. Only pure crimes, like drug dealing, go to trial," the journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Jakarta Globe.

Another case was that of Mariah, a 63-year-old woman whose son was implicated in an embezzlement case in 2009. He was convicted and ordered to serve some time in prison, but not before Mariah was approached with an offer of "help."

"I was approached by a police officer in Tangerang who claimed my son's case would be dropped if I paid him Rp 50 million," she said.

Mariah refused to pay because she wanted her son to have a fair trial. "I told the cop it's fine if the case was brought to the court and my son was sent to jail, because at least we would find out who committed the mistake. Because not only was my son innocent, but he was also deceived," she said.

While her son was awaiting trial, she said, she witnessed how prison officials extorted other inmates' families. "For a half-hour jail visit, you have to pay Rp 20,000, and if the inmate wants to sleep in a separate cell instead of being crammed with dozens other inmates, they have to pay Rp 1.5 million," she said.

Mariah did not have to pay to get her son his own cell because she told the chief warden that her husband used to work at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry.

During the trial, Mariah was again approached by an official offering assistance, this time a prosecutor. "This prosecutor told me the judges and the prosecutors often did deals, so if I wanted the case to be settled immediately I could pay Rp 16 million and he said he would split the money with the judge," she said.

Mariah pretended to agree with the deal and promised she would hand him the money. However, she recorded the entire conversation on her phone.

At the next meeting Mariah handed over an envelope and told the prosecutor her husband used to work for the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, and the prosecutor returned the envelope. "I didn't even fill it with money, it was just some documents for my son's case," she smiled.

Mariah took the recording to the Tangerang District Court chief and reported the offer. The prosecutor was later punished and demoted. Mariah's son was later found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He has since been released.

Extortion in Bandung

In July 2011, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named an industrial relations judge from the Bandung District Court a suspect in a bribery case.

Imas Diansari was accused of taking a bribe from Onamba Indonesia, a wire manufacturing company that was embroiled in a dispute with its workers' union.

The panel of judges from the Bandung Anti-Corruption Court declared Imas guilty of taking Rp 352 million and for attempting to bribe a judge from the Supreme Court. She was sentenced to six years in January last year.

The court also sentenced Onamba's president director, Toshio Shiokawa, to three years in prison and ordered him to pay a Rp 200 million fine.

Imas's case apparently did not serve as a lesson for other judges. In March this year, the KPK arrested Setyabudi Tejocahyono, a judge from the Bandung Anti-Corruption Court, along with four other men who allegedly gave him a bribe.

KPK officers said they caught Setyabudi in the act of taking the Rp 150 million from businessman Toto Hutagalung. They discovered an additional Rp 350 million in a car that belonged to an employee of Toto.

Last December, Setyabudi had convicted seven people in a social aid embezzlement case, sentencing each defendant to a one-year prison term and fining them Rp 50 million.

Prosecutors in the case had demanded a three- to four-year prison term for each defendant. Both Setyabudi and Toto are currently standing trial.

The case also dragged in Bandung Mayor Dada Rosada on allegations that he ordered the judge to be bribed in exchange for going easy on the sentencing and quashing any testimony that would lead back to him. He was later named a suspect and was arrested by the KPK in August.

The World Bank has said corruption across the world costs $1 trillion. No one has done a thorough study of the costs in Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country and one of the hottest emerging markets with an annual economic growth rate of 6 percent.

The Anti-Corruption Studies Center at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta put losses to the state from corruption at $1 billion over the past five years alone.

Fighting the mafia

Hatta Ali, the Supreme Court's chief justice, said in response to Setyabudi's arrest earlier this year that there was an urgent need to "eliminate the judiciary mafia to move toward a better legal system."

He said one way to do this was to give the public wider access to cases being tried in court so that there would be public oversight. The Supreme Court has set up a "Case Tracking System," an online application through which the public can track down the development of a case.

Hatta said all courts across the country must start using the CTS by the end of 2013. The system is hoped to narrow down the possibility of any backroom dealing.

The Judicial Commission, the watchdog for judges, is doing its part by naming and shaming errant judges. Every three months, it announces the names of those proved to be guilty of committing "judicial malpractice."

In the first three months of 2013, 68 employees from courts across Indonesia were announced guilty of backroom deals. Forty-five of them were judges.

However, the Judicial Commission's website only lists the initials of the violators. Many were not dismissed, and only transferred or demoted, leaving them free to carry on working in the justice system.

Yesmil Anwar, a criminal law expert from Bandung's Padjadjaran University, said eliminating backroom deals was a very difficult task, even with the implementation of the CTS.

"I'm glad that we now have this online system where everything is computerized, minimizing direct contact between people. It can make it harder for shady people to work behind the scenes, circumventing the law or favoring the wealthy, but it won't necessarily end the practice," he said.

He said manipulating the system was something that was deeply ingrained in the judiciary and unfortunately continued to be widely accepted as part of the culture.

Efforts to eliminate case-fixing have also been hampered by a social system in Indonesia that does not appreciate law enforcement and is suspicious of its activities and motives, Yesmil said.

He said improving the quality of law enforcers was key to fixing the damaged judicial system.

"Good legislation means nothing if the judges are dirty. The rule of law can only be fairly and equitably implemented when there is a judiciary that is truly fair and impartial," he said.

While the KPK can boast a near 100 percent conviction rate in the cases it has bought before the courts, it remains handicapped by the small staff and budget it has been allocated.

But while high-profile case tried in Jakarta often have a satisfactory outcome, smaller cases tried outside the national media glare are less likely to win a conviction or a lengthy sentence.

With local officials wielding immense power in their fiefdoms, there is a feeling graft busters may not be getting the support their big city peers enjoy.