Former Constitutional Court chief justice Jimly Asshiddiqie (centre), justice Wahiduddin Adams (left) and law professor Bintan R. Saragih stand by ahead of their inauguration as members of the court's ethics council in Jakarta on Oct. 24, 2023. - Antara
JAKARTA: The Constitutional Court’s ethics council is expected to deliver a verdict on Tuesday (Nov 7) on its investigation into Chief Justice Anwar Usman in the face of mounting pressure to expel the embattled figure from the court, as petitioners and legal experts say they fear the worst for the judicial system if a lesser ruling materialises.
Anwar is under investigation by the council for his role in clearing a path for his nephew, Surakarta Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run for vice president by ruling to lower the age of eligibility for presidential and vice presidential candidates under certain circumstances.
The council is expected to decide whether there is enough evidence to find the chief justice guilty of an ethics breach, after suggestions by the head of the panel that it was “not a difficult case to prove”.
At the centre of the investigation are 21 complaints filed against the nine justices of the court. Most of these complaints revolved around Anwar, who swayed the decision of the bench in favour of adding an exception to the minimum age requirement for presidential candidates, just a week before the candidacy registration period came to a close.
Anwar had initially recused himself from ruling on several petitions seeking to change the age requirement but later rejoined and cast a deciding vote in a 5-4 tie-breaker to rule that prospective candidates who had served as elected regional leaders were not subject to the minimum age of 40 years old.
A number of fellow justices switched sides to favour this position after the chief justice got involved. The court decision shocked the nation, with many considering it a marker of lost integrity in the face of nepotism, a betrayal of the country’s reform agenda and a potential precursor to legal foul play in next year’s elections.
With much at stake, activists, legal experts and complainants have contended that only Anwar’s dishonourable dismissal could begin the process of restoring the court’s integrity.
“It is my hope that the ethics council will fulfill history’s call to make a meaningful decision to restore the dignity of the Constitutional Court [through] the dishonourable discharge of the chief justice,” said one of the complainants, Susi Dwi Harijanti, a professor of constitutional law at Padjadjaran University, in an interview with The Jakarta Post.
On Friday, the head of the ethics council, Jimly Ashiddique, confirmed that the panel had gathered enough evidence to deliver a guilty verdict.
He also said Anwar had been the “most problematic” of the justices being questioned, requiring the greatest number of summons. When asked by reporters whether Anwar had been found guilty of an ethics breach, Jimly replied, “Of course.”
The incriminating evidence against Anwar was such that any verdict less severe than a dishonorable discharge would be an outrageous outcome, said Julius Ibrani, programme coordinator at the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), who filed the report with the ethics council.
Obvious conflicts of interest aside, Anwar’s statements prior to the ruling, such as when he cited religious examples in September to support how “fitting” it would be to have a young leader, should be enough evidence of ethical misconduct, Julius contended.
Others have suggested that Anwar’s tie-breaker vote, which cleared the way for his nephew to join the 2024 race, had put other candidates at a disadvantage given the last-minute timing of the ruling, which did not offer enough time for other young elected officials to mount campaigns, leaving only Gibran, the son of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
“If the ethics council fails to move progressively and is deficient in making any meaningful change, then we can consider [the ruling] a side dish to the main course,” Julius said. “[This] may trigger election disputes and horizontal conflict, like in the 2014 and 2019 elections.”
In the 2014 and 2019 elections, the Constitutional Court held an important role as the final arbiter of election results in particularly divisive competitions that saw one side accuse the other of widespread vote-rigging and systematic fraud.
Even if the ethics council finds Anwar guilty of an ethics breach, it will not overturn the top court’s ruling on candidate eligibility, but the decision could trigger calls for a review of the age limit ruling, on top of four new judicial review petitions, one of which was submitted by a law student from Nahdlatul Ulama University in Yogyakarta, demanding a tweak to the age limit exception: that people under 40 should only be allowed to run if they are reelected governors.
“What’s at stake is the respectability of the court and the ethics council, so do not hesitate to issue a proportional penalty,” said former Constitutional Court justice I Dewa Gede Palguna.
“But we also mustn't allow a ruling to be made out of convenience or public pressure [if it] is incongruous with fact.” - The Jakarta Post/ANN
