May 5, 2015 edition
Debate between Constitutional Court justices at a meeting last March seemed to always end in I Dewa Gede Palguna's 'defeat'. Five justices backed the position of Constitutional Court Chief Justice Arief Hidayat, while Palguna's view was supported by justices Aswanto and Muhammad Alim.
The nine justices were debating articles in Law No. 8/1981 on the Criminal Code Procedures (KUHAP). "The root of the debate involved one article," Palguna said on Wednesday last week. The justice declined to mention the article in question, but said it was "the most crucial point, as compared to the lawsuit's other matters."
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April 28, 2015 edition
AMID a busy schedule involving the trials for about 4,000 cases, three chief justices attended a hearing at the Constitutional Court on Thursday two weeks ago. They did not occupy the seats of the panel of justices. Instead, as observer attendees, they spent the 45-minute session sitting in the row of applicants for a judicial review, right in front of the seats of the panel of constitutional justices.
The three chief justices were Imam Soebechi, Abdul Manan and Burhan Dahlan. They represented six chief justices proposing a judicial review on behalf of the Indonesia Judges Association (Ikahi). It was the first session of their lawsuit.
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April 21, 2015 edition
Dozens of prison guards combed the Salemba Detention House in Central Jakarta, in the wee hours of last Tuesday. As inmates slept, the guards checked the interior of every block, and then scoured the penitentiary mosque and church. But, not all the prisoners were asleep.
When the guards searched Block G, one prisoner was caught heading for the wall behind the jail in a rush. Two guards caught the man as he tried to reenter the detention block carrying a black plastic bag. "He seemed to be trying to discard the bag," said Penitentiary Head Gun Gun Gunawan, recounting the operation to Tempo on Tuesday last week.
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April 7, 2015 edition
Four cells at the end of the hallway of the National Narcotics Agency (BNN)'s detention center are now empty. The rooms, each measuring 30 square meters, are sealed off with police tape. Iron bars block access to the cells and separate them from the other eight cells. Down the hallway, at the bottom of an iron ventilation grille panel, is a gaping hole the size of a 21-inch TV screen. Right above is an active CCTV camera.
Last Wednesday, several workers were seen busily trying to close the gap, which had been used as an escape route for ten prisoners the Monday before. "The Inspectorate's team is still investigating how the escapees punctured a hole through the wall," said Sr. Comr. Slamet Pribadi, BNN's spokesman last Thursday.
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January 1, 1970 edition
NEWS of the verdict handed down last Monday by the Ambon Fisheries Court to Zhu Nian Lee, the captain of the MV Hai Fa vessel, had Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pujiastuti up in arms. She is adamant that Lee deserves much more than a Rp200 million slap on the wrist for his illegal fishing.
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January 1, 1970 edition
PRESSED for time, the seven Judicial Commission (KY) commissioners, physically separated by over 1,000 kilometers, used a BlackBerry chat group to form a judge's panel on March 11. On that day, several commissioners were in Bali. Others were in Jakarta. As soon as the group was formed, the panel got to work gathering witness statements and other evidence needed to prove a suspected violation of the ethics by an unnamed Supreme Court justice. "We were certainly in a race against time," the Judicial Commission chair for inter-institutional relations, Imam Anshori Saleh, said in his office last Tuesday.
The panel was composed of Judicial Commission Chairman Suparman Marzuki, Judicial Commission Chairman for Prevention and Quality Improvement Hakim Ibrahim and Imam Anshori. Imam says the panel was in a hurry, as they wanted to clarify the suspected ethics violation before the justice in question was hauled off before the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). "Examining a justice's ethics must come before any prosecution of a crime," Imam stressed.
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January 1, 1970 edition