Judicial Mafia

LIKE a virus, the judicial mafia regenerates quickly. After the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) detained two Supreme Court secretaries, Nurhadi Abdurrachman and Hasbi Hasan, in 2020 and 2023, now the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has detained Zarof Ricar, former Head of Supreme Court’s Legal Research, Development, Education, and Training Division, for allegedly acting as a case broker in an appeal and a judicial review ruling.

Zarof was arrested after prosecutors detained three Surabaya District Court judges who had acquitted murder suspect Gregorius Ronald Tannur after taking a bribe of Rp20 billion. The person paying the money was Ronald’s lawyer, Lisa Rachmat. Through Zarof, Lisa planned to bribe Supreme Court judges so they would reject the prosecutor’s appeal over this acquittal.

The Rp5 billion had only just reached Zarof Ricar, so these Supreme Court judges still jailed Ronald Tannur for five years. But this magazine uncovered a more sinister motive: this sentence passed on an appeal that was far more lenient than the prosecution’s demand was intended to provoke the suspect’s attorney into asking for another judicial review. This would in turn lead to far larger bribes for the Supreme Court judges and case brokers.

Zarof Ricar is alleged to have collected and distributed the bribe money. The discovery of almost Rp1 trillion cash at his home confirms the suspicion that he had long been working as a case broker. He held a strategic position arranging judicial rulings at the Supreme Court. As Head of the Legal Research and Development Division, he had the authority to transfer, demote and promote judges. This gave him the freedom to direct judges to pass rulings over appeals and judicial reviews in line with his requests.

It is not impossible that the cash discovered by the AGO at his home also includes bribes from judges wanting promotion. Therefore, the AGO should thoroughly investigate the network of case brokers at the Supreme Court. As in the case of Hasbi Hasan, the machinations regarding the bankruptcy appealing ruling relating to the Intidana Savings and Loan Cooperative in Semarang could not have been carried out by him alone. He involved Supreme Court justices Sudrajad Dimyati and Gazalba Saleh.

To resolve this issue, there is no alternative but to fire all the judges and transfer all the officials from the Supreme Court. Efforts during successive presidents to reform the judicial system have failed to eradicate the judicial mafia. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who established the Anti-Judicial Mafia Task Force in 2004, could do nothing as case brokers spread to every level of the judicial system. The official who should be cleaning things up is Supreme Court Chief Justice, Sunarto. But he has also been accused of embezzling payments related to the handling of cases. Sunarto will not be able to clean up the Supreme Court because he also has a bad track record. There are indications that Sunarto’s victory in the contest of the job was arranged by Zarof Ricar, who directed Supreme Court justices to vote for him.

The vicious circle of the judicial mafia will not be broken as long as there is no supervision of the Supreme Court. The Judicial Commission Law did provide for monitoring of the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court lodged a legal challenge to this law with the Constitutional Court, and as a result the Judicial Commission no longer has the authority to supervise the Supreme Court.

The Judicial Commission is now nothing more than a body that receives complaints about judicial misconduct but has no power to impose punishments. The Supreme Court Supervisory Council, the body that has the authority to complain about misconduct by judges, has not filed many reports.

The judicial mafia will continue to flourish because the legal system and its oversight mechanism is forced to be toothless. There is little point in hoping that the House of Representatives will revise the Judicial Commission Law given that the decisions it passes are often guided by particular interests. Even if the Judicial Commission were given the authority to supervise judges, the next problem would be finding clean people who could be trusted to lead the institution.

Law is inseparable from politics. Improvements to the judicial system cannot happen without reforms to the political system. With procedural democratic practices and widespread abuses in political institutions, it is futile to hope for resolute law enforcement.