Mujono
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Mujono (30 July 1927 – 14 April 1984) was the sixth Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of Indonesia The Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia () is the independent judicial arm of the state. It maintains a system of courts and sits above the other courts and is the final court of appeal. It can also re-examine cases if new evidence emerg ...
as well as the 16th Minister of Law and Human Rights. His appointment to both posts began a line of former military officials predominating in Indonesia's legal system.Daniel S. Lev
Legal Evolution and Political Authority in Indonesia: Selected Essays
pg. 314.
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, 2000.
Born in
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, Mujono was educated at the Military Law Academy from 1957 until 1962, and was part of the central leadership of the
Golkar The Party of Functional Groups (), often known by its abbreviation Golkar, is a Centre politics, centre to Centre-right politics, centre-right big tent secular nationalist political parties in Indonesia, political party in Indonesia. Founded in ...
party from 1967 to 1971. Mujono was appointed to the Ministry of Law and Human Rights in 1978 after a prior period of civilian officeholders. During his tenure as Minister of Law, Mujono continued the policy of executive interference in judicial affairs established by his predecessor on the
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,
Umar Seno Aji Umar Seno Aji (5 December 1915 – 9 November 1984) was the fifth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Indonesia as well as the fourteenth Indonesian Minister of Law and Human Rights. Aji's appointment as minister of law in 1966 was initi ...
.Sebastian Pompe
The Indonesian Supreme Court: A Study of Institutional Collapse
pg. 122.
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, 2005.
Mujono transferred a number of judges from central courts to outlying districts without consulting Aji, then Chief Justice; when Mujono left his position as Minister of Law to replace Aji as the Chief Justice, he began to call for a return of judicial responsibilities to the Supreme Court. His call took many as surprise since he would have been in a better position to implement such as change while he was still serving under the executive branch, which was in the dominant position. Upon taking office as the Chief Justice, Mujono enacted a number of reforms upon which the Supreme Court structure is still based; the first former army general to be appointed as Chief Justice, he reportedly said at the beginning of his tenure that he'd overhaul the court's processes even if he needed to bring in tanks to do the job.Sebastian Pompe, ''The Indonesian Supreme Court'', pg. 295. In order to deal with the court's sizeable backlog of cases, he increased the number of the staff to the point where many of the chambers could operate autonomously. In the first fifteen months of his tenure, he increased the number of justices on the Supreme court from seventeen to twenty four; in his second year of office, he increased the number to its present level of fifty one justices.Sebastian Pompe, ''The Indonesian Supreme Court'', pg. 296. Additionally, he added "junior chairmen" to the court: four for the jurisdictions of general, religious, military and administrative (which included housing and labor) law, and three for appeals in civil, criminal and customary law. The addition of more justices allowed Mujono to reconstruct the internal functions of the Supreme Court. Justices were organized into eight teams alphabetically organized after the names of Indonesian birds, and those eight teams would oversee the seventeen chambers. Each chamber was required to resolve a minimum of fifty cases per month; the emphasis on simply reducing the backlog rather than assigning teams to cases that fit their expertise is a practice of the court which continues until today. Starting from 1981, each justice also had to oversee multiple appeals courts, some of which required the justices to travel to other regions of the country in order to keep lines of communication between the Supreme Court and lower courts open. Mujono's restructuring was not without its problems, though his narrow focus on reducing the backlog succeeded. By 1984, he reported to then President
Suharto Suharto (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian Officer (armed forces), military officer and politician, and dictator, who was the second and longest serving president of Indonesia, serving from 1967 to 1998. His 32 years rule, cha ...
that the backlog had been nearly eliminated; Mujono died a few weeks later.Sebastian Pompe, ''The Indonesian Supreme Court'', pg. 300. Ali Said, another former military general, replaced Mujono as Chief Justice just as he'd replaced him as Minister of Law three years prior.


References

{{authority control Chief justices of the Supreme Court of Indonesia 1927 births 1984 deaths