Supreme Court Denies Allegations Of Corruption In The Distribution Of Honorary Justices

Spokesperson for the Supreme Court (MA) Suharto (right) during a press conference in Yogyakarta, Tuesday (17/9/2024) (ANTARA/Luqman Hakim)

JAKARTA - The Supreme Court (MA) has denied allegations of alleged corruption in the form of cutting the honorarium for handling cases (HPP) of Supreme Court justices for the 2022-2023 fiscal year amounting to Rp97 billion in that institution.

MA spokesman Suharto conveyed this in response to the release of the Indonesia Police Watch (IPW) which was then reported by a number of mass media on September 11, 2024.

"There is no practice of cutting the honorarium for handling cases of Supreme Court justices that are forced by the intervention of the Supreme Court (MA) leadership," Suharto said as quoted by ANTARA, Tuesday, September 17.

Instead of forcibly circumventing honorariums, according to Suharto, the fact that occurred was that the Supreme Court judges agreed to voluntarily hand over 40 percent of the honorarium rights to handle the cases he received.

Some of these honorariums, he said, were handed over to be distributed to technical support teams and judicial administration.

"The statement of voluntary submission of some of his (honor) rights is stated in a statement letter with the letter known to the chairman of the room concerned," he said.

According to Suharto, all Supreme Court justices have the awareness that case handling is a collective work so they agree to hand over 40 percent of their part to the Case Handling Supporting Team.

The statement of voluntary submission of some of these rights was made by the Supreme Court judge in early 2022 along with the issuance of a Letter from the Minister of Finance regarding the Input Fee Unit (SBML) HPP in 2022.

"All Supreme Court justices have made a statement of voluntary submission of some of their rights to HPP and a power of attorney. Thus, it is not true that there are Supreme Court justices who reject it," he said.

In order to facilitate the process of handing over some of the Supreme Court's rights to the honorarium for handling the case, Suharto continued, the Supreme Court justices made power to Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI) to eradicate funds from their respective HPP receipt accounts.

According to him, the Supreme Court denied IPW's accusations that the HPP distributed to recipients was only 74.05 percent, while the remaining 25.95 percent was used by the leadership of the Supreme Court for personal gain.

Suharto emphasized that the honorarium for handling cases had been distributed 100 percent to recipients of allocations according to the amount stipulated by the Supreme Court's Registrar Decree Number 2349/PAN/HK.00/XII/2023 on December 5, 2023.

The honorarium distribution of case handling is adjusted to the role and responsibility of case settlement in the Supreme Court.

Therefore, the Supreme Court confirmed that IPW's statement regarding the alleged corruption crime in the form of cutting the cellphone of the Supreme Court judge which reached Rp. 97,020,757,125.00 was not true because it was based on processing wrong data and information.

Based on the Supreme Court's Decision, HPP was allocated to 43 recipient groups categorized as judges at 60 percent, supervisors (7 percent), judicial technical supporters (29 percent) and judicial administrative supporters (4 percent).

"IPW's statement that only 74.05 percent was distributed was not true because the calculation was solely based on the amount of data presented in the memorandum of the Supreme Court Panitera to the Supreme Court judge. The memorandum only contains a list of HPP recipients in the room, while other HPP allocation recipients are not included in the memorandum," he said.

In addition, according to Suharto, the Supreme Court also denied allegations by IPW that all cases decided in 2022 and 2023 were considered to be given by HPP.

This assumption, he said, was not true because for 2022 the HPP was only given for the settlement of cases no later than 120 calendar days after the case was received by the panel until it was sent to the applicant's court.

Meanwhile, in 2023 the honorarium for handling cases is only given for the settlement of cases no later than 90 calendar days from the time the case is received by the panel until it is sent to the court.

Based on MA's quarantine data, he said the number of cases in 2022 that were completed no later than 120 days was 20,558 cases, while in 2023 which was completed no later than 90 days as many as 22,341 cases.

Suharto also ensured that the HPP was conducted an audit by the Financial Audit Agency (BPK) in 2023.

"The results of the BPK audit did not find any indications of irregularities that were contrary to statutory regulations," he said.