Questionable verdict<\/p>\n
Less than four days after President Abdurrahman Wahid made
\nanother pledge to embark on establishing the primacy of the rule
\nof law by replacing corrupt judges with honest ones in Jakarta's
\nfive district courts, judges at the South Jakarta District Court
\nsnubbed the government by dropping all corruption charges against
\nDjoko Tjandra, a key suspect in last year's high-profile Bank
\nBali corruption case. Presiding judge R. Sunarto said in a
\nsummary judgment on Monday that the lawsuit against Djoko had
\nbeen filed at the wrong court, arguing it was a commercial case,
\nnot a criminal one.<\/p>\n
The decision obviously stunned not only the government and
\nmost lawyers but also the international community, including the
\nWorld Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which last
\nSeptember abruptly canceled their loan disbursement to Indonesia
\ndue to the scandal.<\/p>\n
The controversial court ruling once again highlighted
\nIndonesia's flawed legal system, reinforcing fears that the
\nchances of legal redress in the country remain as uncertain as
\nduring more than 30 years of the authoritarian rule of former
\npresident Soeharto. While substantial progress has been made in
\nthe reform of the executive and legislative branches of the
\ngovernment, the judicial system has been relatively untouched by
\nthe reform movement.<\/p>\n
Surely the government must also be seen to occasionally lose
\nin court to demonstrate to the public that the ruler is also
\nsubject and subservient to the rule of law and because, in
\npractice, the government also can do wrong.<\/p>\n
However, the South Jakarta District Court's decision is beyond
\nanyone's legal sense of justice because it was taken even before
\nthe judges investigated all the facts of the case. Focusing their
\njudgment on the cessie agreement between Bank Bali and PT Era
\nGiat Prima and seeing the case simply as a debt transaction
\nbetween two private parties outside government interest imply two
\nworrisome possibilities: The judges could have been bribed or
\nwere technically incompetent to judge the case involving a
\ncomplex financial deal; or the prosecutors at the Attorney
\nGeneral's Office were not able to prepare an airtight case or
\ndeliberately put the case together with so many loopholes in
\nreturn for personal rewards from the defendant.<\/p>\n
A special audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers and another special
\ninvestigation by a House of Representatives team on the Bank Bali
\nscandal last year have concluded that without a doubt the case
\nclearly smacks of corruption and merits a hearing in court. The
\ncase is the parody of how politically well-connected
\nbusinesspeople colluded with senior officials to plunder the
\ngovernment, using a cessie agreement as the vehicle of
\ntransaction.<\/p>\n
The audit showed how the cessie agreement was actually legally
\ndefective from the outset and seemed to have been made in bad
\nfaith because Era Giat Prima had not paid anything to acquire the
\ndebts owed to Bank Bali. Such an up-front payment is one of the
\nlegal conditions of a cessie agreement whereby a party takes over
\nthe debts of another party at a discount.<\/p>\n
Moreover, as the debtor is the government in the form of the
\nIndonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), Bank Bali did not
\nrequire the service of any other parties to collect its money. If
\nBank Bali itself was not able to collect the money under the
\ngovernment guarantee scheme for bank deposits and claims it
\nsimply meant the loans did not meet the requirements for
\nreimbursement, and no other parties would have been able to make
\nthe loans viable for payment least they colluded with IBRA or
\nBank Indonesia, which was in charge of verifying the validity of
\nsuch claims.<\/p>\n
The flow of funds -- from the Rp 546 billion fee paid by Bank
\nBali to Era Giat Prima, as uncovered by PricewaterhouseCoopers --
\nand the testimonies of a large number of senior officials to the
\nHouse investigative team further strengthened the suspicion that
\nthe case was full of elements of malfeasance.<\/p>\n
Whatever the real reason behind the verdict and even though
\nIBRA or the Attorney General's Office can still appeal the
\njudgment, one thing is crystal clear. It once again shows how
\nurgent it is for the government to act quickly and speedily to
\nreform the judicial system because legal certainty is essential
\nto rebuilding Indonesia's shattered economy and maintaining the
\nnation's political integrity.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/questionable-verdict-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}