Final Report

January 2010

1. Trainings should be continued on a sustained basis throughout the courts through the
Education and Training Department of the Supreme Court.
2. The key provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct should be posted in prominent public
areas in all courts, so that the public understands the heightened expectations placed on judges
and to change cultural expectations of jUdges, e.g., receiving gifts, gratuities, favors, etc. It is
hoped that the public will not be offended when a judge must refuse a gift if expectations of
judges, and repercussions of not following the rules, are made clearer publicly.
3. For the Code to be more strictly adhered to, the systems of monitoring and accountability must
be strengthened.
4. A clearer transfer and promotion system is needed that takes allegations of misconduct more
seriously.
5. A policy should be implemented prohibiting judges and court staff from meeting privately with
attorneys and prospective parties before, during and after the case. This should apply at all times
both inside and outside the court.
6. Access to judges' and court staff offices, with limited exceptions, should be closed to the
public, with appropriate security measures in place.
7. Stricter rules and penalties need to be applied to attorneys and parties who seek inappropriate
access to judges and court staff.
8. A policy statement should be issued clarifying that the Code requires that all gifts must be
reported, even those less than 500,000 Rupiah in value.
9. A policy statement should be issued that gifts include free meals, favors, gratuities, and that
accepting them could be grounds for suspension or dismissal.
10. Cooperation must be improved between the Judicial Commission (for public complaints,
investigation and guidance relating to violations of the Code of Conduct) and the Supreme Court
(in disciplining judges).
11. A statement is needed from the Supreme Court clarifying that the Code of Judicial Conduct
applies to judges and all court staff. In the alternative, a separate code of conduct must be
implemented for court staff.
12. As registry and other staff are the point of more frequent contact for the public, ethical rules
must be strictly monitored and enforced against all court staff.
13. If court staff are to remain part of the civil service system, a streamlined system must be
developed for documenting and investigating allegations of misconduct and for disciplining such
staff, including dismissal if necessary.
14. Based on the Code of Conduct trainings conducted by the MCC and In-ACeE projects, an
initial set of advisory opinions should be developed and distributed by the Supreme Court to
provide guidance to all judges on appropriate conduct. These should be distributed as widely as
possible, including in hard copy and on the internet.

Final Report
January 2010

Current human resources practices are critical obstacles to the development of a transparent, effective,
efficient and accountable judiciary.
International experience has shown that the most critical factor separating high performing courts
from low performing courts is leadership and the effective use of human resources. It is through each
court's human resources that it achieves its financial, technological and performance goals. To assist
the courts to identify human resource needs and opportunities for improvement, the In-ACCE Project
staff conducted analysis and recommendations on:

Job descriptions and responsibilities;

Recruitment and selection of staff;
Training and development;
Performance management; and
Internal discipline.

Interviews were conducted with judges, civil service court staff and non-civil service staff (otherwise
known as honorary staff). The goal of the analysis was to identify recommendations for improving
fairness, transparency, public access, efficiency, certainty and flexibility to meet court needs.

Job analysis is at the core of human resources (HR) management. It includes the identification of the
required duties of each staff and the determination of necessary competencies for each position, Le.,
knowledge, skills and abilities. Developing clear job descriptions is an integral part of this process.
While the Supreme Court is responsible for developing formal job descriptions, the project found that
chief judges and registrars also playa key role in developing the list of duties required of staff in their
courts. As automation is implemented, these duties must be revised and work redistributed to
accommodate more IT needs.
A local NGO, The Indonesian Institute for Policy Analysis (Lembaga Kajian Kebijakan Indonesia, or
LKKI), under a subcontract to the In-ACCE Project, recommended during its analysis of court
budgeting processes that the Supreme Court should map its human resources needs based on an
analysis of full information from the courts on all job positions, both permanent and honorary.

The judicial assignment process relies, in theory, on the individual judge's "track record". A Supreme
Court file contains his or her: name; identification number; rank and grade; date of birth; gender;
marital status and number of children; religion; previous assignments (place and date); and comments
about illnesses or past disciplinary measures. However, according to In-ACCE research, no
performance evaluations are regularly placed in the file.
Inexperienced judges normally begin in small or rural courts and progress to ever-larger jurisdictions.
In order to receive a raise, judges must be transferred to ever-larger courts and/or to higher rank.
These practices, however, too often result in:

Final Report
January 2010

Lack of sustained leadership, and an insufficient period of time to develop a vision for local
court improvement;
Local court practices conform to what the clerical staff want rather than conforming the work
of the court to the requirements for sound adjudication;
Inconsistent monitoring and evaluation of individual judicial performance; and
Lack of continuity in the courts because of the frequent change in personnel.

Commercial courts suffer particularly acutely from judicial assignment policies. Commercial court
judges who desire promotion must rotate to a new court, frequently one that lacks commercial
jurisdiction. Thus, judges are deprived of experience and courts are forced to rely on less experienced
judges. While they must have 15 years experience as judges prior to being appointed as commercial
judges, they do not have opportunities to gain experience working on commercial matters. Prior to
their appointment, commercial judges undergo approximately two weeks of certification training, but
they may not be immediately assigned to a court with commercial jurisdiction. Furthermore, the
experience a commercial judge gets in managing commercial cases depends largely on where he or
she is assigned. Commercial judges in the Surabaya or Central Jakarta District Courts, where there is
a larger volume of commercial cases, essentially receive "on the job training" and gather considerable
experience. At courts with fewer commercial cases, opportunities to gain experience are less
frequent.15 Even after gaining experience as a commercial judge, he or she may be transferred, often
to a court that does not adjudicate commercial cases. Since commercial cases must be appealed
directly to the Supreme Court, even the transfer of commercial judges to the High Court does not
benefit the quality of commercial cases. Thus, other than participation in trainings as a trainer from
time to time, the experience, once gained from serving as commercial court judge, is largely lost.

The Indonesian judicial system requires new judges to work in a smaller court for up to two years
before they are allowed to serve as a judge. During this period, they are expected to work under the
instruction of a judge and to learn about administration in the court. This system, if well-structured,
offers a unique opportunity to develop young judges just beginning their career. A localized or
regionalized program for new judges that provides requisite trainings and evaluations for a minimum
period of time on all aspects of court administration, record keeping, legal writing, analysis and
decision-making has the potential for making a high impact on court reform.

Acting registrars and registry staff are civil service staff, but the civil service examination neglects
important qualifications in specialty areas that are important for court staff, such as finance, IT and
administration.

Acting Registrars are critical links in both adjudicative and administrative chains, filling the need for
institutional memory in the panels and training oft-rotating judges on local court practices. Judges
come and go. Acting registrars remain in place unless given a rare promotion to junior registrar.
Their role is to monitor the management of each case, to produce the minutes from hearings (thus
controlling which testimony is entered into the record and used as a basis for decision), and to
produce the recitation of facts used by the judges as a basis for decisions. After the oral judgment is
announced, acting registrars produce the final written decision that stands as the first instance record.
15 For example,the MakassarDistrictCourt only had one bankruptcyfiling each year in 2008 and 2009; Medan
DistrictCourthad two filings per year. In comparison,CentralJakartaDistrictCourt had 62 bankruptcyfilings
in 2008 and 63 bankruptcy filings in 2009; Surabaya District Court had 21 bankruptcy filings 2008 and 17
filingsin 2009. SemarangDistrictCourt had the third most bankruptcyfilings: lOin 2008 and 15 in 2009.

Final Report
January 2010

Acting registrars are promoted from within the court registry staff. They are not necessarily attorneys,
and they receive no training for these case-critical duties.
Acting registrars control the court's ability to process cases in a fair and timely manner. Once
assigned to a case, the acting registrar's supervisor remains the chief registrar, so the head of panel
lacks authority to require the acting registrar to prepare minutes or take other action to move the case
forward. Acting registrars exercise control over case processing and transparency though their
physical control of the case file and courtroom notes. Until a case is archived, the acting registrar
(and their court colleagues) view the file as the acting registrar's own property and may deny anyone
access to its contents. Although evidence may be summarized in the hearing minutes, the acting
registrar's notes remain with the taker in perpetuity instead of with the case file. In the future, this
excessive control over the case file and written notes will have to be balanced with the public's right
of access to the case file.

Registry staff are generally recruited from candidates who have passed the civil service exam and
worked in the court finance or administration office. They need not have special training in the law,
management or administration. There is no training program that prepares any of the court staff for
their basic duties, for promotion, or for new challenges.
Education is a serious need for all registry staff. Once employed, each court employee is instructed in
their job duties by their superior or colleagues as they move up the ladder in court employment. It is
clear from interviews that many employees simply initiate practices based on their understanding of
court procedures and varying guidance from superiors. Once a task is performed in a particular
fashion, it becomes part of the registry's orally-transmitted procedural culture. New managers do not
receive training or support to improve their performance of changed duties.

A grey economy in each jurisdiction relies on undocumented "honorary" employees who are
variously compensated from undocumented funding streams such as: court "user fees" set by
individual court employees; assessments on bailiff and other service payments; donations from local
governments; and donations from the court employees themselves. Practices vary from court to court,
and from docket to docket. While honorary staff were to be used primarily for functions for which
civil service examinations are not given by the Supreme Court, such as cleaners, they have been
placed in positions for which criteria do exist, or higher standards should be applied, such as registry,
IT and public information desk staff. The In-ACCE Project observed that some judges and court staff
ask honorary staff or interns to enter data into the registers and the automated CMS.
Courts have the discretion to hire and fire these honorary staff at will. The In-ACCE project observed
that the court does not adequately track the number of honorary staff, their functions or how they are
paid. The number of honorary staff is unlimited, and sometimes they are unknown even to court
management. As such, honorary staff are effectively outside the system of monitoring and
accountability within the court, hence leading to perceptions of corruption. From the perspectives of
good governance, public trust and security in the courts, court practices relating to honorary
employees are problematic. These positions should either be formalized or abolished.

A Human Resources Management Workshop was held on April 16-17,2007. The 44 participants at
this training were intentionally the same participants who participated in the earlier Case Management