Judicial facelift

The Indonesian Supreme Court recently issued a regulation that would organize the court into five chambers and permit consultations on cases within chambers. According to Sebastiaan Pompe in The Jakarta Post, the Court is framing this reform as a way to handle its caseload. However, Pompe rightly questions whether separate chambers will improve the quality of adjudication. In particular, he notes that the regulation will allow religious judges to sit on civil cases, including complex commercial transactions. Moreover, nothing in the regulation mentions giving the Court the power to refuse to hear cases, even though that particular reform does seem to have been discussed in the DPR. Sadly, Pompe concludes that this new regulation might simply be a way for the Supreme Court to extend its control over lower court judges.