Reformers still fear the new judicial panels will be less impartial, because of a shortage of good judges and the Supreme Court's chequered record.The other prong of the assault on the KPK comes from the police.
Judges are not subject to any government influence: they are appointed by the cabinet upon nomination by judicial panels and can be neither dismissed nor transferred without the panels' agreement.
I remember at least two occasions where judges on judicial panels where I also served took positions that they had heard advocated at seminars sponsored by groups with particular interest in the litigation.
In 1982, 1992 and 2002, judicial panels were prepared to impose their own redistricting plans if the Legislature failed to comply with the spirit of the requirement that districts be as compact as practicable and with roughly an equal number of constituents.
These included ending its right to prosecute suspects, stopping it from conducting wiretaps, extending the anti-corruption court from one Jakarta-based unit to one in each of the 33 provinces, and allowing the Supreme Court to appoint the judicial panels.
Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa's Constitutional Court, who was the first chief prosecutor for the tribunals, said today that talking about a timetable in these terms was equivalent to holding a sword of Damocles over the heads of these judicial panels.
