- Parliament Approves Six Candidates for New Supreme Court Justices
- Monitoring the Commissioner Selection of the Judicial Commission via seleksiky.com
Supreme Court and Judiciary
Parliament Approves Six Candidates for New Supreme Court Justices
The Judicial Commission (KY) proposed six nominees for Supreme Court justices to the House of Representatives (DPR) during their 36th plenary session of the 2014-2015 period. It is the final stage for the Supreme Court justice selection process on the first half of 2015 and an internal meeting afterwards with House’s Commission 3. The Judicial Commission has made four previous selection processes consisting of a selection of administration, quality, and personality interviews to assess each candidate. The process ended by interviews conducted by Judicial Commission members; also by statesman, justices, and former justices. A selection of nominees this year was held in order to fulfill eight vacant seats of justices.
Finally, during the plenary session, all of the House’s factions agreed on six nominees, except Gerindra. They only approved three nominees because according to them, the other candidates did not achieve the expected competencies. But mostly, House members approved based on integrity and quality of the previous selection results made by the Judicial Commission. The six approved justices in accordance to the Supreme Court’s chambers are Suhardjono and Wahidin (Criminal), Sunarto and Maria Anna Samiyati (Civil), Yosran (Administration), and Arto Mukti (Religion). With this, Indonesia now officially has six new Supreme Court justices. (RW)
CSO Initiative
Monitoring the Commissioner Selection of the Judicial Commission via seleksiky.com
Civil society participation in public policy selections is a necessity for democracy implementation. In recent years, participation during selections of public officials have increased, including in the selection for the Commissioner of the Judicial Commission (Komisi Yudisial/KY). A number of civil society organizations joined the Coalition for Judicial Commission Monitoring (Koalisi Posko Pemantau KY), which has a passion to oversee the selection process for the new commissioners of the Judiciary Commission. The coalition has identified several issues for the Judiciary Commission. Among them are related to the duties and authorities in preserving the dignity of the judges, the Commission’s relations to the Supreme Court, and internal organizational management within the Commission itself.
As part of the Coalition for Judicial Commission Monitoring, Indonesian Judicial Monitoring Society of the Faculty of Law – University of Indonesia (MaPPI FHUI) created the webpage http://seleksiky.com/. Through this webpage, MaPPI FHUI wants to encourage people to participate in the selection process for the KY Commissioners. The public can give any input regarding the track records of the KY Commissioner candidates. In addition, the website also allows the public to provide assessment scores and comments to each candidate. Feedback and comments in the website can only be seen by the selection committees, so anonymity is kept. In the end, elected commissioners are expected to correspond with public expectations for the commission’s needs at present and future. (ED)