There is an interesting trend at year’s end, where all institutions publish their evaluations, year-end notes or year-end reflections.
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Kompas/Wisnu Widiantoro
Supreme Court chief justice Hatta Ali (left) and Supreme Court Education Chamber head Takdir Rahmadi give an address to reporters related to the performance of the Supreme Court in 2017 at the Supreme Court building in Jakarta on Thursday (28/12). In its address, the Supreme Court stated that 2017 was a year of cleaning up.
There is an interesting trend at year’s end, where all institutions publish their evaluations, year-end notes or year-end reflections.
Said institutions evaluate themselves and publish their achievements for the year. Perhaps this is a form of accountability. On Friday, Supreme Court (MA) chief justice Hatta Ali called 2017 the year of “cleansing”. The MA claims that, all through 2017, the court was focused on cleansing judicial bodies.
Judicial power presents its dark side when justice is tradable. Decisions that are supposedly made “for justice under the One Almighty God” in reality are sometimes made “for the almighty money”. Money can buy everything, including justice! The power of money can determine the harshness of charges.
This is not a new story. Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of California, Gary Goodpaster, once wrote in a book edited by Tim Lindsey that “the Indonesian legal system cannot be trusted—indeed, cannot be used to render honest decisions—but may be trusted to protect corrupt activities.”
Hatta said that 14 justices and seven court officials were arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) during his leadership. Hatta Ali gave a strong reaction, saying that “Those who cannot be nurtured, we are forced to destroy, so that their virus will not spread to other officials.” The term “destroy” that Hatta used is harsh despite the lack of further elaboration on the operational definition of Hatta Ali’s plan to “destroy”.
An independent judiciary must truly be cleansed of those with a greed for wealth and political power.
We can define this term “destroy” as ending a person’s career as a justice. Corrupt people, those with dubious integrity, those with records of issuing memos or notes and those with a propensity to lobby those in power to obtain the position of justices are in fact morally inadequate to serve as justices.
An independent judiciary must truly be cleansed of those with a greed for wealth and political power. However, exemplars are important here. Leaders must also showcase the moral behavior of modesty and rejection of a hedonistic lifestyle. Judicial leaders must have a moral responsibility and the courage to be morally responsible when their subordinates are ensnared in corruption cases.
A cleansing of the judicial system cannot merely rely on harsh words. There should also be a political will to “destroy” corrupt justices who can no longer be nurtured. The draft justice bill can be an entry point for cleansing the judicial system.
