VZCZCXRO3915
OO RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #0956/01 1350917
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 140917Z MAY 08
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8998
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS PRIORITY
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 2485
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 0955
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 1834
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 1956
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 2641
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 2669
RUEHPT/AMCONSUL PERTH 0792
RUEAWJB/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 000956 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, INL FOR BOULDIN 
DEPT FOR EEB/IFD/OMA 
DOJ/OPDAT FOR LEHMANN/ALEXANDRE 
SINGAPORE FOR BAKER 
TREASURY FOR IA-BAUKOL 
NSC FOR EPHU 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KJUS KCOR KMCA PREL ID
SUBJECT: SUPREME COURT PROGRESSES BUT RESISTS GREATER 
ACCOUNTABILITY 
 
REF: A. JAKARTA 856 
     ¶B. JAKARTA 183 
     ¶C. 07 JAKARTA 2953 
     ¶D. 07 JAKARTA 2722 
 
JAKARTA 00000956  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Despite progress on several fronts, the 
Supreme Court continues to resist efforts to introduce 
greater accountability.  The Court's 2007 annual report cites 
progress on workload management, case management and 
transparency, but critics complain that the Court has blocked 
external supervision of its finances and efforts to make 
judges more accountable.  Court leadership is due to turn 
over in 2008, but a significant change in direction is 
unlikely, given the internal dynamics currently operating at 
the Court.  END SUMMARY. 
 
PROGRESS TOWARDS GOALS 
 
¶2. (U) The Supreme Court's 2007 annual report cites progress 
in a number of areas related to the blueprint for judicial 
reform launched in 2004 (ref B).  According to the report, 
the Court improved its handling of cases, resulting in a 
decrease in the number of cases pending decision to 9,400 at 
the end of 2007 from over 12,000 in 2006.  The report noted 
progress towards implementing the Court's new policy on 
transparency, including the publishing of over 3000 decisions 
on the Court's website.  The report also heralded the 
initiation of a certification program for judges who will 
handle anti-corruption cases.  Some 97 judges have completed 
the two-week-long certification process thus far, and the 
Court intends to create a pool of up to 1200 certified 
anti-corruption judges around the country.  USG's Millennium 
Challenge Corporation Threshold Program (MCC) and USAID have 
supported several of these initiatives. 
 
RESISTING EXTERNAL AUDITS 
 
¶3. (U) Despite the progress noted above, Embassy contacts 
report that the Court continues to resist effort to introduce 
greater accountability.  One of the key issues is the Court's 
refusal to allow external auditing of its finances. 
According to the annual report, Indonesia's courts collected 
Rp 143 billion (about USD $15 million) in case fees in 2007. 
(Note: observers have speculated that the total may in fact 
be significantly higher.)  Last fall, the Supreme Audit Board 
(BPK) filed a criminal complaint against Chief Justice Bagir 
Manan because he refused to allow BPK to audit these 
accounts.  Manan cited a colonial-era law which indicated 
that case fees were not considered "state revenue"--a posture 
most legal observers today consider indefensible--and 
therefore were not under the jurisdiction of BPK. 
 
¶4. (SBU) The struggle was supposedly resolved after President 
Yudhoyono pledged to draft an executive order which would 
resolve the legal question (ref D).  Eight months later, the 
executive order has yet to be issued and the problem has 
resurfaced.  According to one judicial expert, part of the 
problem is that courts cannot hold financial accounts in 
Indonesian banks; as a result, accounts are generally held in 
the name of individual judges.  Moreover, funds deposited by 
plaintiffs into those accounts are supposed to be either used 
to cover specific court services or refunded to the 
plaintiffs at the conclusion of trial.  In practice, however, 
refunds rarely occur, effectively creating slush funds for 
judges to dispose of as they see fit. 
 
WEAK SUPERVISION 
 
¶5. (SBU) The Court is also reluctant to exercise effective 
supervision over the behavior of Indonesia's judges.  After 
the Constitutional Court stripped away the powers of the 
Judicial Commission (at the Supreme Court's request) in 2006, 
 
JAKARTA 00000956  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
the Court regained the obligation to police its own ranks 
(ref C).  According to the annual report, 18 judges (out of 
some 6000 total) were subject to disciplinary action in 2007 
for ethical or procedural violations.  Observers point out, 
however, that only one judge was charged with corruption 
despite widespread claims of judges taking bribes.  According 
to one Supreme Court Justice, there is no enthusiasm among 
the justices for stronger supervision because of fear that 
tougher standards will eventually be applied to the justices 
themselves. 
 
OPPOSING NON-CAREER JUDGES 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Embassy contacts have also criticized the Court's 
resistance to the use of non-career judges.  The 
Constitutional Court and the Anti-Corruption Court (ACC)--two 
institutions which, unlike the general courts, are generally 
viewed as honest and effective--both contain majorities of 
non-career judges.  While career judges follow bureaucratic 
career paths that are controlled by the Supreme Court, 
non-career judges--who normally come from private law 
practices or the academic world--are not beholden to senior 
judges for placement or promotion.  They are seen as less 
susceptible to outside influence.  Observers and NGOs 
frequently argue that non-career judges dramatically improve 
the quality of decisions in high-profile cases. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) However, the Supreme Court has actively resisted 
the use of non-career judges, according to contacts.  A 
contact told poloff that the non-career judges on the ACC 
waited almost a year before receiving a paycheck from the 
court bureaucracy, which is under the Supreme Court's 
control.  An NGO contact noted that the Court has barred 
non-career judges from participating in the Court's 
anticorruption judge certification process (see above), 
despite a current proposal by the Ministry of Law and Human 
Rights to place non-career judges in provincial courts 
specifically to hear corruption cases (ref A).  He speculated 
that this may be an attempt by the Court to make an end run 
around those plans. 
 
EXTERNAL PRESSURE DRIVING REFORMS 
 
¶8.  (SBU) A contact at the Center for Law and Policy Studies 
(PSHK) told poloff that ongoing reforms at the Court are 
largely the result of external pressure.  The contact cited 
the Court's Reform Team (an external body which the current 
Chief Justice helped establish), and a pilot reform project 
organized by the Corruption Eradication Commission and the 
Ministry of Finance (MoF), as the major movers of court 
reform.  Indeed, the MoF recently approved a significant 
increase in non-salary allowances for Court officials based 
on progress towards reform goals.  Our contact complained, 
however, that the incentives were granted too liberally, and 
suggested that future incentives be tied more strictly to 
performance benchmarks. 
 
NEW WINE, OLD BOTTLES? 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The impending retirement of the Chief Justice and 
key deputies over the next year will bring new leadership to 
the Court.  However, contacts are pessimistic that the new 
leaders will prove more progressive given the resistance 
shown by the justices, who elect their own leadership. 
According to one expert, the internal politics of the Court 
are heavily influenced by the group of justices from 
Indonesia's religious courts, a largely conservative group 
which comprises more than 25% of the justices even though 
religious cases represent only 3% of the Court's docket.  A 
senior justice agreed that the current makeup of the Court 
was problematic, as religious and military judges often 
decide civil and criminal matters which lay outside their 
 
JAKARTA 00000956  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
area of expertise.  (Note: Indonesia's religious courts 
handle mainly family law and inheritance cases.)  This 
Justice told us that the mismatch of expertise to 
caseload--rather than corruption--was the main cause of the 
poor decision making at the Court. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Supreme Court reform is a long-term process where 
much remains to be done.  External forces--including foreign 
donors such as MCC--will help keep current projects in place, 
but greater accountability will probably come only with a 
generational turnover of Court personnel.  When this will 
occur depends to some degree on the legislature,  which later 
this year will begin the process of appointing new 
Commissioners to the Judicial Commission which nominates new 
justices.   This selection will be crucial to improving the 
quality of justices appointed to the Court. 
HEFFERN