A fresh start from corrupt past

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.