Limitation of Misconduct of Judges: Increasing The Synergy of Supervision of Judges by The Judicial Commission and The Supreme Court

The supervision of judges in judicial power in Indonesia is carried out by two state institutions: the Judicial Commission and the Supreme Court. Internal supervision of judges is carried out by the Supreme Court on the judicial technicalities of judges and externally by the Judicial Commission on the ethical aspects of judge behavior. However, in its implementation, there is still no explicit limit to the scope of judges’supervision between the two institutions. This research aims to provide a different perspective and new breakthrough in judge supervision, namely, setting a boundary between judicial technical violations and ethical violations in examining alleged ethical violations by judges as a form of judicial supervision. The type of research used was reform-oriented research using a statutory and conceptual approach. The results showed that the mechanism for supervising judges was regulated through the Joint Regulations of the Supreme Court and Judicial Commission on the Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct for Judges (KEPPH), KEPPH Enforcement Guidelines, and Joint Examination Procedures. However, in its implementation, there is still a problem of unclear scope and limitations in the supervision of judges. Therefore, there must be improvements in related regulations by limiting technical judicial violations and ethical behavior.


Introduction
Indonesia, as a state of law, which has been affirmed in Article 1,paragraph (3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia Year 1945, must automatically implement and uphold the principle of the rule of law. A fundamental element of YURIDIKA the rule of law is the free and impartial judiciary. 1 This legal principle of freedom and impartiality is independent and impartial. The judiciary in Indonesia, namely the Supreme Court and its subordinate courts, and the Constitutional Court running the judiciary must be based on this principle. However, the principles of independence and impartiality must be balanced with good supervision based on the principle of checks and balances to prevent the arbitrariness of judicial independence and freedom. 2 Initially, the Supreme Court carried out the internal supervision of the judiciary. However, over time, there has been an urge to reinforce the implementation of independent and impartial judicial power accompanied by checks and balances. This is because conflicts of interest are possible with this internal control mechanism.
The idea arose to form an independent institution capable of supervising the implementation of judicial power to realize independent and impartial judicial power. 3 The idea arose to form an independent institution capable of supervising the implementation of judicial power to realize independent and impartial judicial  The absence of definite limits in determining ethical violations by judges is a problem in implementing judge supervision. Thus, in implementing judicial supervision, especially in examining alleged violations of ethics by judges, the absence of restrictions on technical judicial violations and ethical violations will cause uncertainty, and potential views differ in determining whether a violation by a judge constitutes an ethical violation. Furthermore, it also has the potential to cause disharmony between the Supreme Court and the Judicial Commission in supervising judges.
Since 1987, the discourse on supervisory institutions for the independence of judges has begun. Noseda states that restrictions on judicial power, in terms of accountability and independence, are necessary. 5 However, he still needs to comprehensively discuss how these limits should be applied to external agencies that perform checks and balances on judicial power. Discourse on balancing the exercise of judicial power is growing. Cotilla and Veal stated that there must be ethical limitations to implementing judicial supervision. 6 Similarly, Thornburg said that ethical limitations are needed so that the supervision of judge behavior is not biased by the concept of the independence and impartiality of judges. 7 In Indonesian judicial power, some researchers have shown phenomena related to the absence of restrictions on ethical violations and technical judicial violations in implementing the supervision of judge behavior by the Judicial Commission and Supreme Court. Marzuki stated in his paper that many judges tend to violate the code of ethics and code of conduct of judges; it is just that they still cannot be perfectly proven violations. 8 Furthermore, Rumadan comprehensively stated that the lack of full implementation of supervision of judge behavior in Indonesia is due to the absence of limitations between the two types of violations of judge behavior, which makes the supervision of judge behavior not optimal and even biased. 9 As described above, several studies that discuss the discourse on implementing Legal research was carried out using a reform-oriented research method to support this study. The research method is a type of legal research that evaluates the adequacy of existing rules and proposes changes to them with standards or parameters such as legal principles/principles or legal doctrines/teachings. 10 This method uses a way to first examines the norms and rules in applicable laws and regulations (positive law), which are related to the supervision of judges. Therefore, a statute and conceptual approach were used to support the research method. 11

Commission
The birth of the Judicial Commission in the Indonesian constitutional system is a legal reform aimed at advancing the judiciary in Indonesia. This is because with the birth of the Judicial Commission, the supervision of judges is no longer carried out alone by the Supreme Court as a state institution exercising judicial power, Such behavior can be in the form of presiding over the trial, taking sides in presiding over the trial, lying in formulating legal opinions, or deliberately ignoring evidence or trial facts. The above behaviors are when in court. In addition, the Judicial Commission supervises extrajudicial judges' behaviors, such as gambling, drunkenness, meeting litigants, and committing reprehensible or immoral acts. 12 These behaviors include degrading judges' honor, dignity, and behavior. Acts that degrade judges' honor, dignity, and behavior can be said to violate ethical behavior. judicial capabilities, such as the ability to handle and decide cases; aspects of work; and administration of cases, such as efficiency in carrying out duties, administrative order, and case finance, as well as aspects of judge behavior both inside and outside the court. It is said to fall into the realm of technical-judicial aspects when the basis for determining the presence or absence of violations is documents made by judges carrying out their duties, including court decisions. Meanwhile, it is said to be included in the realm of behavior when determining the presence/absence of violations: the testimony of witnesses, court hearings, statements of judges in the mass media, and documents made outside the judicial function. 14 In exercising its authority, the Judicial Commission developed a concept of supervision with a preventive and repressive approach. 15 The Judicial Commission's preventive judge supervision system can be interpreted as an effort to reduce the behavior of judges who do not follow the KEPPH. 16  Once registered, the report will be discussed and analyzed in a closed and confidential panel consisting of two or three members of the Judicial Commission. This hearing is conducted to decide whether a report or finding can be followed. The examination process of the whistleblower, witnesses, and reporters follows the actionable report. Conversely, reports that cannot be followed up will not be examined or notified of the reported person. After examining statements from whistleblowers, witnesses, and reporters, the examination results are discussed in a Plenary Session attended by at least five members of the Judicial Commission. This hearing was conducted to determine whether the person violated the code of ethics.
The results of the examination stating that the reported person (judge) was found guilty of violating the honor and nobility of the dignity and behavior of the judge, the Judicial Commission will impose sanctions on the reported person to the Supreme Court, with copies to the President and the DPR. However, suppose the reported person is not proven to violate the honor and nobility of the dignity and behavior of the judge. In this case, the Judicial Commission will restore the person's good name by writing to the reported person who was penetrated by his superiors and the whistleblower. The absence of clear restrictions on the object of judges'supervision is also supported by two principles in KEPPH that are declared invalid. Applying the principles of high discipline and professional attitudes was declared inapplicable. 32 Even so, these two principles can still be applied because only the points of application are declared not to be binding. 33 This situation creates a gap and unclear limits in the supervision of judges that must be obeyed by the Supreme Court and the Judicial Commission, especially concerning the principle of high discipline and professional attitude, the extent to which the principle must be enforced because the points of application cannot be used as a reference. Meanwhile, these two principles are closely related to judges' independence, which is a limitation for the Judicial Commission in externally conducting judge supervision.