Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Moh. Mahfud MD, receiving the visit from the journalists of Pelita daily at his office, Monday (25/10).
Jakarta, MKOnline – Taking place at his office, Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Moh. Mahfud MD, received the visit from the journalists of Pelita newspaper who came for an interview, Monday (25/10) noon. “What do you want to ask about? We have one hour starting from now,” Mahfud said reminding while at the same time, greeted Yani (a journalist of Pelita). Yani who came with her partner, Hikmah (photografer).
According to Yani, this interview was intended to explore Mahfud’s persona as law enforcer (or the Court’s Chief Justice). The results of interview would be published in one of the articles in Pelita. “Law enforcer who often provokes ‘controversy’, she joked.
In this interview, Mahfud answered several questions about law enforcement issues and his personal life, including among others, about the failure of legal reform in Indonesia, how he manage the Court as a judicial institution which –up to now- considered to be credible and clean, to Mahfud’s relationship with his family.
According to Mahfud, the failure of reform was caused by the failure in law enforcement, in this case, penal law, particularly corruption eradication. “Response to terrorism is relatively successful,“ he explained. Mahfud added, this was because political intervention has continued to shadow the settlement of corruption cases.
In addition to that, Mahfud admitted that conducting reform in and cleaning up law institutions, such as the Police, the District Attorney’s Office or the Supreme Court (court, red)) could not be done instantly. “Cleaning up an organization would take a long time and great determination,” Mahfud said. “Because the mistakes in the past required them to make improvement. (Because) you are the legacy of the past.”
Why the Court is (still) considered to be a clean organization up to now? Mahfud answered it is because the Court is a new institution and sanction could be directly imposed in the event of mistake. “Mahfud is not better than the Chief of the National Police Force,” he added.
Therefore, Mahfud affirmed that if there is an indication of violations of law at the Court, particularly those related to corruption, I request for such matter to be directly refer to me. “However, strong evidence must be presented,” Mahfud said.
Furthermore, Mahfud explained about his techniques in managing the Court up to now. According to him, one of the principals he applied was mutual correction at the internal level, particularly among constitutional justices. “At the internal level, correction, mutual supervision and exchange of information are frequently made,” he said.
The Professor of State Administration Law of UII also stated that in order to maintain the Court’s authority, we need not to create a fierce or frightening image. Mahfud added that such authority does not come from our serious nature. “But from integrity,” he said, firmly. “I occasionally make a joke at the hearing. I often make a joke on the parties. We could do that to insofar as it did not undermine the authority of the hearing.” (Dodi/mh)
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 | 07:32 WIB 582