A fresh start from corrupt past

This is the first of two articles on dealing with corruption by Bertrand de Speville, director of the Jakarta-based Consultants Project for the establishment of an anticorruption body for Indonesia. He is a former commissioner of the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption.

JAKARTA (JP): A new national initiative against corruption can be destroyed by the past. At the outset, the leadership of the country should consider how the past is to be dealt with. It may be desirable that such an initiative makes a fresh start, and signal a change of climate. That would mean overlooking or somehow accommodating past conduct. There are moral, practical and political justifications for such a course.

First, if new rules are to apply and a new climate of enforcement is to prevail, by which standards should past conduct be measured? In a new climate under changed rules and different expectations, it is perhaps not right that acts done in a different moral climate should be judged by these new standards.

Second, public awareness and expectation that something effective might at last be done about corruption is likely to result in a spate of allegations, some of which will go back a long way.

From a pragmatic point of view, there is a real danger that a new anticorruption authority will be overwhelmed by numerous allegations of matters going back years, that it will simply not be able to cope with the volume.

Can the country risk its fresh initiative against corruption being swamped by old matters, of its newly launched anticorruption authority sinking under the weight of past misdeeds? For reasons explained later, it is not an option for the anticorruption authority merely to refuse to investigate these allegations.

Third, attempting to deal with old matters uses up resources and restricts the capacity to investigate allegations of new corruption. Would it not be preferable to use available resources to address the present and the future?

Fourth, the political will to defeat corruption is liable to be undermined by those in positions of influence who could be adversely affected by effective action against the problem. That reality should be weighed in assessing the risk and consequences of the anticorruption initiative failing.

This is a delicate and difficult political matter, to be decided at the highest level. But it should be decided at the outset. Experience elsewhere suggests that the success of the campaign against corruption is put at risk if the decision is delayed.

The options are limited: 1. declare an "amnesty" to the effect that matters occurring before a certain date will not be investigated; 2. initiate a "truth and reconciliation" process by which those coming forward within a certain time and publicly admitting their past acts of corruption will not be prosecuted; 3. restrict the use of new powers of investigation to investigating matters occurring after a certain date; 4. do nothing in the hope that all allegations can be investigated to the satisfaction of the public.

Before considering each of these options further, the reasons why it would be unwise to allow the anticorruption authority itself to choose not to investigate certain allegations from the past should be explained.

Corruption cannot be beaten without public support. The public will support the anticorruption authority only if the authority gains its trust and confidence. The authority's investigation policy is essential to winning that trust and confidence. It is most important that the authority aims to investigate every pursuable report of corruption made or referred to it.

There are three good reasons for adopting such a policy. First, putting aside even a minor allegation will deter the complainant from returning, perhaps with a much more important matter.

Second, what appears minor quite often turns out to be important when investigated. Finally, picking and choosing what to investigate and what not to, raises suspicions of improper motives, if not of corruption.

People will not understand why some allegations are investigated and some are not. They will mistrust the authority and lose confidence in it.

A policy of investigating all reports capable of investigation means that the authority does not pick and choose. As regards allegations from the past, the agency will attract public mistrust if the decision whether to investigate very serious cases that come to light is left to the agency itself.

That is why that decision must be taken elsewhere.