Maintaining the Integrity of Tax Court Judges to Make Equitable Decisions

Abstract

The Tax Court is a judicial body authorized to examine and decide tax disputes. As part of judicial authority, the Tax Court has the independence to execute its authority based on applicable legal provisions. However in reality, the dualism of coaching in the Tax Court resulted in the emergence of several debates related to the recruitment, control and coaching of judges, and the realization of the principle of transparency in the Tax Court's decision. These problems lead to responses of public mistrust and inflicts questions about the competence of the Tax Judge to provide fair decisions. Beside to the issue of the independence of the Tax Court, what will be studied is the issue of the integrity of the Tax Court Judge. This is based on the fact that judges who have integrity in themselves, in the form of good competence and character will also produce a fair decisions. This study examines in deepen the philosophical foundation of law enforcement in the Tax Court in relation to the integrity of judges. This research is a normative legal research. The problem approach used in this research is statute approach and conceptual approach. The results of this research indicated that to maintain the integrity of the Tax Court Judge an independent Tax Court institution was needed, besides that the Tax Court Judge needed to have quality legal competence, as well as good character.