Supreme Court wants less cases and higher pay

The Supreme Court wants to handle fewer cases to maximize work quality by reducing its workload and renew talks on raising the salary of judges.

In the court's 2006 annual report presented Tuesday by Chief Justice Bagir Manan, it also boasted progress in the areas of internal oversight, public access to verdicts, case handling and human resource management.

"We currently have 46 active justices working on thousands of cases every year. It would be far more efficient if not all cases went to the Supreme Court, especially petty ones," Bagir said.

As of March this year, 9,681 cases were pending at the court. This is a steep decline from 14,366 cases in the corresponding period of 2005 and 20,314 cases in 2004.

With a total of 24,826 filed cases, each justice on average has had to deal with 540 cases per month since January last year.

Of these 24,826 cases, 499 were graft cases. Of the 307 that have been heard, the court issued 239 guilty verdicts and 68 acquittals.

Bagir said the growing workload had been primarily triggered by the establishment of new institutions, such as planned fishery courts, that bring more cases to the Supreme Court.

"I don't think a divorce case should go all the way to the Supreme Court. There are some petty cases I believe should end at the appeal court level," he said.

Another way to cut back the workload of judges may be through mediation and arbitration, Bagir said, adding that such mechanisms are commonly used in other countries.

While the Supreme Court is in favor of the idea, some argue that such mechanisms prevent people from achieving justice.

At the presentation of the court's annual report, Bagir also touched on raising the salaries of judges and employees at judicial institutions, arguing that current salaries are not incentive enough to boost work performances.

A visiting German legal expert, Jutta Limbach, said on April 14 this year that improving the wellbeing of judges was important for the independence of the judicial system.

Legislator Trimedya Panjaitan, who chairs the House of Representatives Commission III on legal affairs, praised the Supreme Court for having reduced the number of outstanding cases, but suggested the court bring about changes in the area of internal oversight.

"There are no details on the kinds of complaints the public have tendered. Is this because of the quality of judges or sluggish service at the court? The Supreme Court needs to show it can pull off internal supervision to justify the trillions of rupiah allocated to it in the annual budget," he said.

Such an improvement, Trimedya said, would prove the court is capable of doing its job without the existence of the Judicial Commission, which is mandated to supervise the judiciary.

The Supreme Court has heavily criticized the new commission for what it calls an overstepping in the selection, replacement and imposition of sanctions on judges.

Judicial Commission chairman Busyro Muqoddas said the court's annual report was a visible sign that the court was opening up and informing the public of its activities.