AGO yet to commence fight against graft

Nearly one month after his installment as the new attorney general, MA Rachman has yet to make a major step in investigating the many corruption cases in the country. Tiarma Siboro of The Jakarta Post interviews Achmad Ali, an expert advisor to former attorney general Baharuddin Lopa, on the issue.

Question: New Attorney General MA Rachman has yet to make any progress, especially in regard to investigating major corruption cases. What is your comment on this?

Answer: Actually, former attorney general Baharuddin Lopa (who died in July) had not done much during his 32-day tenure. Despite his brief term, however, he had demonstrated his strong commitment in reviving trust in the Attorney General's Office, which has had a bad name in the past.

Rebuilding trust should have been done by the new attorney general as soon as he assumed the post. He was supposed to hold a news conference to explain his policies, including making an announcement of his wealth. Reviving the people's trust must start with the leader.

Are there any other steps?

President Megawati Soekarnoputri has underlined the importance of conducting internal reforms as the office is believed to have become a camp for legal case transactions. This means the attorney general was expected to remove all top officials suspected of having a bad reputation. In reality, I guess the attorney general pretends that he doesn't know that most of his staff members are part of the problem.

He must also reorganize the office. The first step he should take is dissolving the post of junior attorney general of special crimes as our new law no longer recognizes special crimes and has classified it as corruption.

The junior attorney general of intelligence post has to be dissolved also as it has no connection to the institution. Intelligence is supposed to be handled by the military.

Instead, I urge the Attorney General's Office to set up a new post called the junior attorney general of human rights violations. The new post is needed because the office currently deals with many cases of human rights violations, which were not under its jurisdiction.

How do you evaluate the percentage of problematic prosecutors and clean ones at the Attorney General's Office?

It is quite clear that most of the prosecutors are problematic in nature, even though there are a handful of others who are really good.

It's better for the office to change its recruitment system for finding qualified personnel, as we all know only people with "average qualifications" intend to apply at the office as prosecutors. Smarter people prefer to become academicians or judges.

Will insiders be able to settle existing problems at the Attorney General's Office?

Frankly speaking, I admit that some criteria shows that insiders may fail to settle the problems as they are actually a part of the problem. In the case of Pak Lopa, he was more popular as a lecturer than a prosecutor. I'd say that insiders are a barrier to internal reforms.

How should the office improve its performance then?

The office must stop the law enforcement's practice of saying "they will...". We frequently hear the office say "we will probe this case or that case", when in the end everything has been fruitless. When we investigate people for their alleged involvement in corruption, we are not talking about how long he is to be questioned, but how can a quality indictment force the court to punish the perpetrators.

What are the main problems behind the office's efforts to bring back big corruption suspects like Prajogo Pangestu and Rahardi Ramelan?

It depends on commitment. I mean the prosecutors can investigate the cases should they be more proactive. In the case of Prajogo Pangestu, it was soon after Pak Lopa was installed as attorney general. We were informed that Prajogo was in Singapore and refused to return here. Any effort to bring Prajogo back failed because Indonesia and Singapore do not have an extradition agreement.

Pak Lopa's efforts to "persuade" Prajogo to return were held through a mediator, who told us that the suspect agreed to return on condition that he was not arrested. At first Pak Lopa rejected the offer, but later changed his mind after we revealed our strategy. Unfortunately, the strategy was leaked and we have failed to bring him (Prajogo) back to Indonesia.

Based on the situation, can the public still have hope in the office?

I have personally felt hopeless due to the fact that none of our ideas for improvement have been adopted by the office.

Many predicted that you were one of the potential contenders for the attorney general's post when its announcement was delayed for one week. What exactly happened at that time?

I'm not in the position to answer that question. Why don't you ask Megawati? I don't wish to comment on the matter. But I guess many people were thankful that Megawati eventually named MA Rachman. They feel "safe" now.

Have you ever come to the office recently?

I haven't been to the office even though Pak Lopa's decree installing me as one of his experts is still valid. I was asked by Pak Lopa to help him, together with Prof. Arifin and Prof. Andi Hamzah of the University of Indonesia, as he didn't believe in his own prosecutors. At the time, I was frequently asked to review his prosecutors' tasks. It was so messy.