Bribery or compassion?

Many people have said that today is the heyday of the lawyers defending the former cronies of former president Soeharto. As many of them are in trouble with the law, many high- profile lawyers are busy reaping the resultant benefits.

Exempted from this group is Elza Syarief, a lawyer for Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, Soeharto's youngest son and a business tycoon, now being tried for his alleged role in the murder of Supreme Court justice Syafiuddin Kartasasmita.

In the wake of the trial Elza was reported to have paid two witnesses for the prosecution Rp 1 million (US$100) each to buy decent clothes in which to testify at court. For this Elza had to appear in a session held by the Council of the Code of Ethics of the Indonesian Advocates and Lawyers Association (HAPI). Elza was accused of bribery. The two witnesses were later arrested by the police for perjury. Along with them Elza was also questioned by the police for bribery. She has been in police detention for questioning.

Elza is alleged to have bribed Rahmat Hidayat and Tatang Somantri, two witnesses in Tommy's criminal trial, to lie to the court. The two, who are currently in police detention, have said that Elza gave them each Rp 1 million before they testified in court.

However, before the police questioned her, a group of senior lawyers led by Adnan Buyung Nasution asked the law enforcement agency not to intervene in the case because it was merely a matter relating to the professional code of ethics. Nasution said that a lawyer found to have committed a blunder in his professional capacity should first be heard by the council of the code of ethics of his professional organization.

Meanwhile, the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in Jakarta voiced its support for a police investigation into bribery allegations against Elza and condemned any effort to provide allegedly corrupt lawyers with impunity. LBH Jakarta's acting chairman, Paulus Mahulete, deplored efforts on the part of senior advocates to view alleged criminal offenses committed by lawyers as mere violations of the profession's code of ethics.

"It's shameful of the profession ... that senior advocates have failed to distinguish ethics violations from crimes," he was recently quoted as saying. He was referring specifically to a statement by the Committee of Advocate Groups (KGA), which was established to defend Elza.

Paulus said he suspected the attempt to form a special team to investigate the case instead of allowing the police to open an official investigation was an attempt to protect the "court mafia", using the independence of the legal profession as an excuse.

However, some senior lawyers believe Elza's claim that the Rp 2 million she paid the two witnesses was too insignificant to be termed bribery.

It is up to the court to decide whether the sum would have been sufficient for the two lowly-paid guards to have regarded it as an inducement for their testimony or as an act of compassion. While awaiting further developments, it is worthwhile reflecting on a recent statement by Prof. Satjipto Rahardjo of the University of Diponegoro in Semarang, Central Java. He said he saw that nowadays many lawyers had lost their professionalism and sense of ethics. For them the law had become a kind of commodity for sale to the highest bidder.