Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07JAKARTA2953
2007-10-22 09:25:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Jakarta
Cable title:  

INDONESIA'S SUPREME COURT -- LACK OF

Tags:  PGOV KJUS KCOR KMCA EAID ID 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO5604
OO RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #2953/01 2950925
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 220925Z OCT 07
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6750
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS PRIORITY
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 1407
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 0991
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 1908
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 002953 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, INR/EAP, INL FOR BOULDIN
DEPT FOR EEB/IFD/OMA
DOJ/OPDAT FOR LEHMANN/ALEXANDRE/BERMAN
SINGAPORE FOR BAKER
TREASURY FOR IA-BAUKOL
DEPT PASS FEDERAL RESERVE SAN FRANCISCO FOR FINEMAN
DEPT PASS EXIM BANK
DEPT PASS USTR FOR DKATZ, RBAE
NSC FOR EPHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/22/2017
TAGS: PGOV KJUS KCOR KMCA EAID ID
SUBJECT: INDONESIA'S SUPREME COURT -- LACK OF
ACCOUNTABILITY OVERSHADOWS REFORMS

REF: A. JAKARTA 2722

B. JAKARTA 2688

C. JAKARTA 514

Classified By: Pol/C Joseph Legend Novak, reasons 1.4 (b,d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 002953

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, INR/EAP, INL FOR BOULDIN
DEPT FOR EEB/IFD/OMA
DOJ/OPDAT FOR LEHMANN/ALEXANDRE/BERMAN
SINGAPORE FOR BAKER
TREASURY FOR IA-BAUKOL
DEPT PASS FEDERAL RESERVE SAN FRANCISCO FOR FINEMAN
DEPT PASS EXIM BANK
DEPT PASS USTR FOR DKATZ, RBAE
NSC FOR EPHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/22/2017
TAGS: PGOV KJUS KCOR KMCA EAID ID
SUBJECT: INDONESIA'S SUPREME COURT -- LACK OF
ACCOUNTABILITY OVERSHADOWS REFORMS

REF: A. JAKARTA 2722

B. JAKARTA 2688

C. JAKARTA 514

Classified By: Pol/C Joseph Legend Novak, reasons 1.4 (b,d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Indonesia's Supreme Court has made progress
in implementing reforms designed to improve the efficiency
and professionalism of the judiciary. The Court's potential
remains unfulfilled, however, largely due its reluctance to
tackle the issue of judicial accountability. While moving
forward on providing information to the public and advancing
a code of ethics for judges, the Court has resisted efforts
to subject the judiciary to external supervision and appears
to be in denial about the extent of judicial corruption. USG
assistance is helping the reform process. END SUMMARY.

TENTATIVE PROGRESS


2. (SBU) Indonesia's judicial sector has been repeatedly
cited by business leaders, NGOs and international financial
institutions as inefficient and prone to corruption. Legal
uncertainty has also featured prominently in discussions
regarding Indonesia's investment climate. In 2004, the
Supreme Court leadership responded to these deficiencies by
initiating a reform program which focused on improving court
operations in the areas of case management, information
technology, training, human resources, budgeting and
supervision. The program was greeted enthusiastically by
observers and has attracted significant donor funding from
the European Union, Australia and, beginning in 2007, the
U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).


3. (SBU) The Court reform program has boasted various
successes since its inception. Over the past year alone, the
Court has seen a significant increase in the number of cases
handled, launched a web site which for the first time will

allow the public to review actual Court decisions, and
drafted a more open policy on information transparency. The
Court is also implementing reforms meant to improve the
quality of Court staff. Perhaps most important, the Court
published a new code of judicial ethics and is actively
working, with MCC support, to socialize the new rules around
the country. In addition, the Court volunteered to be one of
five state bodies participating in a pilot bureaucracy reform
program led by the Ministry of Finance. The program is
considered to be a prototype for an eventual government-wide
bureaucratic reform plan.

THERE ARE CHALLENGES


4. (SBU) Despite these achievements, a growing chorus of
judicial activists and NGOs have pronounced the Supreme
Court's reform efforts a failure and are calling for a review
of Court leadership. The main issues, according to
observers, are the Court's refusal to submit to external
supervision and its failure to address the issue of
corruption within the judiciary. This growing consensus was
mirrored in a recent poll in which 70% of respondents had a
negative image of the Court, up from 40% in 2004. Judicial
observers say that judicial corruption is as bad today as it
was under the Suharto regime, an impression corroborated by
Transparency International's (TI) 2007 country report.


5. (SBU) The Court has doggedly tried to keep other
institutions from monitoring its activities. Under a 2003
amendment to the Indonesian Constitution, the authority to
supervise judicial behavior was taken from the Court and
given to a new institution, the Judicial Commission.
However, the Court actively opposed the Commission's
authority, and in 2006 the Constitutional Court stripped the
Judicial Commission of its supervisory powers (ref C) at the
Court's behest. (Note: The Constitutional Court is another
influential judicial body, but with a more limited mandate.)

JAKARTA 00002953 002 OF 003


Similarly, the Court refused earlier this year to allow the
Supreme Audit Board (BPK) access to records of fees collected
from plaintiffs. The Court claimed, somewhat incredibly,
that the fees did not constitute "state revenue" (ref A).
Only the direct intervention of President Yudhoyono
facilitated a compromise. Court critics, however, complained
that the compromise allowed the Court to evade accountability
for what was, in fact, an untenable legal position.

PROTECTING ITS OWN?


6. (SBU) With the Judicial Commission decision, supervision
of Indonesia's 6,000 judges is now back in the hands of the
Court itself. (Note: This is in fact the practice in many
countries, including the U.S.) Court critics, however, claim
that the Court is reluctant to take action against its own.
According to the Court's own records, 51 court employees,
including 16 judges, were subject to disciplinary action
across the country in 2006. In most of these cases, however,
the punishments were extremely light: a written reprimand or
a denial of promotion. At the Supreme Court level, ten staff
have been dismissed since 2006, but most of these were
indicted on corruption charges by the Corruption Eradication
Commission before the Court took any action.


7. (C) Many justices seem to be in denial about the
corruption problem. Privately, justices claim that, evidence
to the contrary, the issue is overblown. One Justice told
poloff that the overwhelming majority of judges were honest
and that when bribes were solicited it is mainly by court
clerks, not by judges. (Note: One lawyer scoffed at this,
telling us that judges used clerks to solicit bribes in order
to provide plausible deniability.) Another Justice
complained to us that police and prosecutors were corrupt,
too, and that judges were being unfairly singled out in the
media.

PROTECTING THE POWERFUL?


8. (C) The public's perception that the Court protects
corruptors has been strengthened by a series of controversial
decisions involving high officials, particularly former
president Suharto and his family. In 2001, the Court granted
Suharto complete immunity from criminal prosecution when it
ruled that he could not be brought to trial due to health
concerns. More recently, decisions which have sparked
controversy include:

-- a 2004 decision overturning a lower court's conviction of
former Parliament Chairman and Golkar Party chief Akbar
Tandjung on corruption charges;

-- a 2005 decision reducing the sentence levied against Tommy
Suharto, the notorious son of the former president, from 15
years to 10. Tommy was convicted of ordering the murder of
one of the Supreme Court's own justices;

-- a 2006 decision upholding a lower court decision that over
US$1 billion in bonds issued by Asia Pulp and Paper were
illegal and did not have to be repaid. The bonds followed a
standard format which had been used in other Indonesian
investments. The decision was a major blow to foreign
investor confidence;

-- a 2007 decision ordering TIME magazine to pay Suharto $106
million in damages for defamation of character (ref B;
TIME--which is fighting the ruling--was punished for
publishing an article detailing the extent of Suharto's
corruption).

AN INCOMPLETE TRANSITION


9. (C) Court reform is clearly a long-term project. The new
judicial code of conduct is a major step forward on

JAKARTA 00002953 003 OF 003


accountability and the Court is working to ensure that the
new standards have teeth. USG assistance of approximately
$14 million is actively supporting efforts to strengthen the
Court's budget practices, improve human resource management
and make Court decisions and processes more transparent. The
problems that remain, however, are serious. The impact of
the Court's shortcomings affect not only the judiciary, but
also the investment climate, accountability for human rights
violations, and the overall reform process. The Court is
moving forward on many fronts, but it needs to do more and
quickly.
HUME