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Hatta Ali was selected on Wednesday as Indonesia’s new Supreme Court chief justice.

Hatta, the court’s former deputy chief justice for supervision, comfortably beat out Ahmad Kamil, the deputy chief justice for non-judicial affairs.

Legal analysts and watchdogs, however, have expressed skepticism that Hatta would bring much-needed reform Indonesia’s notoriously corrupt judiciary.

Other considerations to replace Harifin Tumpa as chief were Abdul Kadir Mappong, Paulus Effendi Lotulung, Imron Anwari, Andi Syamsu Alam, Atja Sodjadja, Mohammad Salah, Widayatno Sastro Hardjono and Artidjo Alkotsar.

Hermawanto, director of legal watchdog the Initiative Institute, said on Monday that out of all the candidates, only Artidjo had a clean track record.

“I have asked people inside the Supreme Court and they all told me that [Artidjo] is an idealist,” he said on Tuesday.

Alvon Kurnia Palma of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) agreed that only Artidjo had the integrity to lead the country’s top court.

“We can see from the rulings he’s made, most of them reflected the public’s sense of justice,” he said.

Alvon highlighted a recent case in which the court sentenced a 55-year-old domestic worker to 140 days in jail for stealing oxtail meat and plates from her employer.

Artidjo was the only judge in the three-man panel who gave a dissenting opinion and argued against jail time for the woman, Rasminah binti Rawan.

But Hermawanto said it was unlikely that the court would elect Artidjo.

“It is his clean track record that will hurt his chances to lead the Supreme Court,” he said.

Harifin has been the top court’s chief justice since January 2009. Under his watch, three judges have been arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for accepting bribes and another by the National Police, confirming long-standing allegations of rampant corruption inside the judiciary.

Hermawanto said that another factor hurting Artidjo’s chances was the fact that he did not start out as a district court judge.

“There’s long been a feud between career and non-career judges,” he said.

Imam Anshori Saleh, deputy chairman of the Judicial Commission, said he hoped for a Supreme Court leader who was willing to work with the commission, which monitors and sanctions rogue judges.

“We all know that [the Supreme Court] has been very protective of [judges] violating the law and judge’s code of conduct,” he said. “We hope that the court will be more open to its flaws so we can all work together to fix Indonesia’s judiciary.”

Harifin said he would support candidates who proposed stricter supervision of the conduct and integrity of the 7,000 judges and 30,000 court clerks across the country.

The Supreme Court has overseen the entire judiciary since 2005, when it received greater independence and power. The monitoring role used to be handled by the Justice and Human Rights Ministry.