People were asked to be careful so that they did not get tricked by someone who claimed to be able to arrange the decisions made by the Constitutional Court (The Court) especially the cases related to the disputes over regional election result. That was the warning from the Chief Justice of The Court at a press conference in his working room on Thursday (15/1).

On the previous day, Mahfud also mentioned the same thing before reading the decision on Kerinci Election case. Mahfud pointed out that there was his colleague contacted him and asking for some amount of money for the case and it was waited by the justices for the decision. Similar thing also happened in Belu Election case which would be decided today. Mahfud admitted that two days earlier, Tuesday (13/1), someone contacted him on his residence by phone telling that he had ordered two people named Lopez and Waiku to give 2.5 billion rupiah to him. “This is currently under investigation,” announced Mahfud.

Mahfud, who was accompanied by the Secretary General of The Court, Janedjri M. Gaffar, indicated that the person had contacted the parties having their cases about election result disputes, then whichever party won would be asked for some amount of money. “This is pure blackmailing done by people outside The Court,” he added.

Actually, revealed Mahfud, that was never happened in The Court because all decisions were made based on many legal considerations. All parties could observe it from the legal consideration for each decision made. “Certain people are used to doing that (blackmailing) because Indonesian judiciary is known to be ill-reputed,” concluded Mahfud. 

Besides making clarification on the bribery issue on The Court, Mahfud also said that earlier that day, The Court received the Unqualified Opinion from the Supreme Auditor Board for its success of showing good financial management. The achievement for two consecutive years was the proof for The Court s credibility. (Annisa Lestari)

Photo: Doc. of CCRI PR /Yoga Adiputra
Translated by Yogi Djatnika / CCRI