Manado High Court chief justice Sudiwardono is photographed early Sunday morning (8/10) in the detention car after being questioned at KPK headquarters in Jakarta. The KPK made the arrest during a sting operation on the justice and House Commission XI member Aditya Moha in a bribery case linked to the justice’s decision on a court appeal by former Bolaang Mongondow regent MarlinaMoha, Aditya’s mother.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The arrest of Manado High Court chief justice Sudiwardono, who reportedly received bribes from Aditya Anugrah Moha, a House of Representatives member from the Golkar Party faction, should receive special attention from the Supreme Court leadership.
Astern response from the Supreme Court is needed to eliminate the so-called judicial mafia to maintain public confidence in the judicial system.
While prevailing norms within the Supreme Court should be upheld, the external oversight of the judiciary also needs to be strengthened. Without transparent external supervision, efforts to eliminate the judicial mafia will be more difficult.
"A series of cases that have occurred in the judiciary needs to be addressed seriously. The fundamental weakness of the systems in place at the Supreme Court and the lower courts is apparent not only in their oversight, recruitment and transparency, but also inthe administrative decisions of the courts," said Indonesia Corruption Watch researcher Aradila Caesar.
Therefore, the Supreme Court should take strategic steps in addition to forming a special team under its Supervisory Board.One such step would be to work with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the Judicial Commission (JC) to map out the “judicial mafia” network for more effective efforts in combating judiciary corruption.
Miko Ginting, a researcher at the Indonesian Center for Law and Policy Studies, said the successive arrests of judges should be seen by the Judicial Commission as an opportunity to build a great judiciary. "The JC should be proactive in the new supervisory system being developed by the Supreme Court and KPK," Miko said.
Separately, JC spokesman Farid Wajdi said that the commission always checked out the reported judges and those who reported them to optimize preventative measures. Farid said the JC could not publicly disclose its activities, especially if they related to alleged violations of its ethics code and judges’ behavior.
Separately, Ahmad Syafii Maarif, a member of the Presidential Working Unit of the Implementation of Pancasila, said that the Supreme Court could not work alone in recruiting new judges.
"They need help to monitor the track records of new judges," he said. "Nowadays, the judges are mentally rotten. We need an overhaul. One of these is extra-strict recruitment [procedures] because the damage starts there," he said.
Influencing decisions
Sudiwardono, in his capacity as chief justice of the Manado High Court, nominated himself onto the panel of judges handling the appeal of North Sulawesi’s Bolaang Mongondow Regent (2001-2011), Marlina Moha, who was also Aditya\'s mother.
Sudiwardono suspended Marlina\'s sentence after receiving the first bribe from Aditya allegedly in August 2017, so that she could still attend the Golkar Party meeting in Jakarta, despite being sentenced to five years in prison.
"The bribery was not only for the deferral, but also to influence the decision on the appeal. For these two things, the agreed fee totaled about S$100,000 Singapore dollars. About S$20,000 was intended to prevent the arrest and the other S$80,000 to affect the decision on the appeal," said KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah.
