Professor Simon Butt has been studying the effectiveness of Indonesia’s corruption courts, particularly in regional areas. This research was funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship (2015–21).

These courts, and the Anti-Corruption Commission prosecutions they decide, had, for several years since their establishment in 2004 maintained a 100% conviction rate, which was widely considered to be a ‘success’ in Indonesia. This was surprising, given Indonesia’s long history of high levels of public sector corruption. But the conviction rate had also raised questions about whether corruption cases were fair. Several constitutional and legislative changes appeared to threaten the pillars upon which the ‘success’ of the corruption courts had been attributed. These pillars are the separation of these courts from the existing judiciary, and the use of ad hoc judges.

Working with leading academic researchers from the Center for Anti-Corruption Studies, Faculty of Law Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Professor Butt has collected data to enable an assessment of Indonesia’s corruption courts, and to determine the effect of these constitutional and legislative changes. Detailed research and findings appear in Professor Butt’s forthcoming book, Judicial Dysfunction in Indonesia (to be published by Melbourne University Press in late 2022 or early 2023).

These findings suggest that the corruption courts have largely met the purposes for which they were established. But these courts hear too few cases to significantly reduce corruption levels in Indonesia, and have done nothing to improve the overall quality of the Indonesian judiciary. Indeed, some of the broader dysfunctional elements crippling the judiciary as a whole — such as corruption, and unfair trials (many of which have been presided over by judges widely regarded as reformists) — have infected the corruption courts themselves. This is clear from recent prosecutions for corruption of almost 30 judges from most branches of the Indonesian judiciary, in which judges from corruption courts have been overrepresented.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, which oversees most Indonesian courts, assesses performance of courts and judges primarily by reference to efficiency measures. This research calls for a return to formal examination of judicial decisions, to help improve the quality of judicial reasoning, which remains generally low, including in the Supreme Court itself.