A Comparison of Appointment of Supreme Court Justices in Indonesia and Malaysia

Main Article Content

Iwan Satriawan
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5797-1516
Farid Sufian Shuaib
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8223-8431
Tanto Lailam
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8539-6304
Rofi Aulia Rahman
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7245-9457
Devi Seviyana
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4645-9963

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the model of the appointment of Supreme Court justices in Indonesia and Malaysia and to find out a better model of judicial appointment in producing better quality justices. By using normative and empirical research, it concludes that first, the appointment of Supreme Court justices in Indonesia uses two methods namely career paths and professional paths (non-career paths). This system is built after political reform where one of the agendas is the reform of law enforcement. While the appointment of justices in Malaysia demonstrates the dominance of executive power in the decision to appoint justices who were finally appointed by the Yang Dipertuan Agong. Therefore, there is pressure to make the process of appointing justices more transparent to produce more credible and independent justices. In 2009, the Judicial Appointments Commission was established in Malaysia to ensure an unbiased selection of judicial candidates for the consideration of the Prime Minister. Second, the requirements for selecting Supreme Court justices in Indonesia are more detailed and longer process than in Malaysia because the process of selecting Supreme Court justices is done by the Judicial Commission and there is a confirmation hearings process in the House of Representatives. In fact, the selection process affects the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the Supreme Court justices. Although Malaysia does not have any judicially determining cases on the lack of integrity of Supreme Court Justices, there were allegations of impropriety.

Article Details

How to Cite
Satriawan, I., Shuaib, F. S., Lailam, T., Rahman, R. A., & Seviyana, D. (2022). A Comparison of Appointment of Supreme Court Justices in Indonesia and Malaysia. Journal of Indonesian Legal Studies, 7(2), 633-676. https://doi.org/10.15294/jils.v7i2.60862
Section
Research Articles
Author Biography

Iwan Satriawan, Faculty of Law, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

Iwan Satriawan is an Assoc. Prof. in Constitutional Law at Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is a Coordinator of the Research Cluster on Law and Technology at the UMY Research Centre. His focus area of research is constitution, democracy, human rights, and law & technology.

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