in which will be often said the Indonesian judiciary will be rotten to the core. yet there will be one Supreme Court judge who always upholds or extends the sentences of corruption felons, along with sides with the poor.

Judge Artidjo Alkostar | Courtesy of Wikimedia

in which judge will be Artidjo Alkostar. To anti-graft activists, he will be a hero. In more than a dozen corruption cases appealed to the Supreme Court, he has upheld guilty verdicts or overturned acquittals.

For example, Artidjo led a panel of three Supreme Court judges in which in November 2013 increased the sentence of former legislator Angelina Sondakh via four years along with six months behind bars to 12 years for accepting bribes to rig government contracts.

He also extended the jail sentence of former Democratic Party chairman Anas Urbaningrum via seven years to 14 years for corruption along with money laundering.

Even the biggest names don’t inspire fear. After former president Suharto was charged with corruption in 2000, Artidjo was on the panel of three Supreme Court judges handling his appeal. Two of the judges wanted to drop the case, yet Artidjo issued a dissenting opinion, resulting in a compromise in which Suharto could remain a suspect along with be tried when healthy. Suharto never was brought to court along with died in 2008.

Artidjo includes a reputation for siding with the ‘little people’. In 2011, the Supreme Court sentenced an elderly domestic worker, Rasminah, to four months along with 10 days in jail for stealing six plates, an oxtail, mouthwash along with additional items via her employer in Ciputat, west of Jakarta. Artidjo issued a dissenting opinion, declaring she was not guilty.

In October 2006, when the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Garuda Indonesia pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto for the murder of human rights activist Munir, Artidjo issued a dissenting opinion, demanding life imprisonment for the pilot.

Artidjo also champions environmental cases. In 2008, he was on a panel of Supreme Court judges in which overturned Medan District Court’s acquittal of timber tycoon Adelin Lis on corruption along with illegal logging charges.

To the political elite, Artidjo’s determination to punish corruptors has earned him unflattering nicknames, such as “the crazy judge” along with “the killer judge”.

Fierce Determination

Artidjo was born in 1949 within the East Java town of Situbondo. His mother was via Sumenep on the island of Madura, where people have a reputation for being fiercely determined.

His career in law came about by accident. After completing high school, he wanted to study agriculture because his father was a farmer (along using a religious teacher). Artidjo entrusted an acquaintance to enrol him within the Faculty of Agriculture at the Islamic University of Indonesia (UII) in Jogjakarta. Upon arriving for the entrance exam, he was informed in which Agriculture enrolments had closed, so he enrolled in Law, intending to transfer to Agriculture the following year. He ended up enjoying Law along with stuck with in which.
After graduating in 1976, he considered becoming a state prosecutor, before deciding to be a lawyer. In 1981, he was appointed deputy director of the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) office in Jogjakarta. In 1983 he became director of the office, a position he held until 1989. His early years with LBH coincided with the so-called ‘mysterious shootings’ in which the military via 1983-85 killed thousands of alleged hoodlums without trial along with left their bodies within the streets as part of an effort to combat crime. Artidjo protected some of the people on the hit-list, letting one gangster stay at his house for three months. In several cases, he confronted the military. There were rumours in which Artidjo could be killed for his boldness.

In 1989, Artidjo went to brand new York along with studied human rights law at Columbia University. He also worked for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch in brand new York For just two years. Coming home, he established a legal practice, Artidjo Alkostar along with Associates.

In November 1991, the Indonesian military massacred over 250 unarmed East Timorese at a cemetery in Dili. After the bloodbath, Artidjo along with another lawyer went to East Timor to defend two pro-independence activists on subversion charges. The lawyers faced many threats via military intelligence agents. The presiding judge initially refused to allow them to represent the defendants, who were sentenced to 15 years along with life imprisonment. Artidjo was subsequently commended for his “commitment to the ideals of justice along with human rights within the face of threats, intimidation along with obstruction”.

Dark Justice

In 2000, then-justice minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra informed Artidjo he had been nominated to become a Supreme Court judge – at a time when the government was trying to clean up the top court by appointing non-career judges.

Artidjo initially declined. “Because I knew the entire world of justice was black … because there are often bribes. I knew in which via my experience as a lawyer,” he said.

Yusril assured him in which he had been nominated by human rights activists along with reformists. So Artidjo consulted with Muslim clerics via Madura, who advised him to accept. After undergoing a “fit along with proper test” he was installed as a judge.
Within two months of joining the Supreme Court, he put a notice on his office door in which read, “No visitors who want to talk about cases,” because many people were trying to bribe him for favourable verdicts.

He said one acquaintance offered him cash, a car along with an apartment. Another time, a businessman via the East Java capital of Surabaya came to his office along with announced: “Mr Artidjo, here’s the money, the others [judges] already have theirs.”

As a judge, Artidjo should have received an official residence in Jakarta, yet he ended up renting a modest house behind a welding workshop within the unfashionable neighbourhood of Kramat Kwitang because a retired judge refused to vacate his free house. Artidjo turned heads at the Supreme Court because he often arrived at work in a bajaj. On most Fridays, he still flies to Jogjakarta (where his wife lives) along with on Saturdays lectures in law at his alma mater, UII.

While many judges live in opulence well beyond their official salaries, Artidjo’s only luxuries are his collections of ornamental carp along with bonsai plants. He will be also a voracious reader, enjoying crime fiction along with philosophy.

Bantleman & Tjiong

On May 22, Artidjo will turn 67. Supreme Court judges used to have to retire at 65, yet in 2009 their retirement age was extended to 70.

If Artidjo had retired at 65, he could not have led the panel of three judges who on February 24 overturned Jakarta High Court’s acquittal of two Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS) teachers, Canadian Neil Bantleman along with Indonesian Ferdinant Tjiong, on charges of sexually abusing three kindergarten boys. The teachers had initially been convicted by South Jakarta District Court along with sentenced to 10 years. Artidjo extended their sentence to 11 years.

Many of Jakarta’s expatriates believe the abuse case was baseless along with financially motivated. The mother behind the charges, who has since moved to Belgium, insists her son was gang-raped multiple times in a toilet, along with also in Bantleman’s glass-walled office along with in “a secret room” within the teachers’ lounge – along with in which a magic stone along with magic potion were involved. She initially tried to sue JIS for US$12.5 million along with blamed the alleged abuse on six cleaners, one of whom died after brutal police interrogation. The others say they were tortured into doing confessions.

When the mother could not get any compensation because JIS had no liability for the cleaners, she declared the teachers were also involved within the abuse along with increased her demand to US$125 million. She maintains her son contracted herpes as a result of sodomy, yet an independent lab test conducted in Europe showed the boy does not contain the virus.

Despite the flimsy evidence, the court of public opinion was firmly against JIS, which will be one of the country’s most expensive schools. Lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea says judges are often reluctant to issue verdicts contrary to public opinion. “They have to do in which to save their job; they have to do in which to get the sympathy of the public,” he told Canada’s CBC News.

Artidjo, as usual, sided with the public, perhaps keen to show in which foreign pressure could not influence the Indonesian judiciary. Or perhaps he was in a hurry – the prosecution had requested the verdict be made before a travel ban on Bantleman expired. Reports say the panel of judges was named only on February 22 along with then issued the ruling two days later – hardly sufficient time.

When foreign paedophiles are tried in Indonesia, their countries generally don’t insist upon their innocence.

Given the irregularities along with lack of evidence against Bantleman along with Tjiong, in which seems in which Artidjo’s habitual heroism may have led to a rushed, flawed verdict.

Miscarriages of justice, no matter how well-intentioned, are just as bad as judicial scams of buying along with selling verdicts. Meanwhile, the mainstream Indonesian media has lavished praise upon the Supreme Court for maintaining the credibility of the legal system.