Do police know who they are accountable to?

By Adnan Pandupraja

JAKARTA (JP): The new Police Bill was submitted to the House of Representatives by Baharuddin Lopa immediately after he had been installed as the Minister of Justice and Human Rights. Together with the then National Police chief Gen. Soerojo Bimantoro, he submitted to the House the draft of a law to replace the current Police Law No. 28 of 1977.

Meanwhile, Minister of Defense Mahfud M.D., has unexpectedly begun to talk about returning the police to their former position as part of the military, as was the case under the New Order.

Hopefully this was merely a warning to the police to realize that they were a part of civil society who had to uphold the public interest rather than their own esprit de corps.

The recent controversy over the police leadership lends further urgency to the deliberation of the Police Bill.

Yet, a closer look at the draft of the bill also shows that it ignores the principle of civil society as stipulated in People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Decree No. 9 1998 on clean governance.

In general, the Police Bill does not much differ much from the previous law, except as regards the expansion of police powers after they split from the military. The bill does not reconstruct the police organization and direct it towards a civil society structure, although the term "civil society" is mentioned in the bill's preamble.

This may have happened because the bill was drafted without prior research on what all levels of society expect from their future police force. Neither has the bill been adequately introduced to the public.

What principles should have been contained in the draft of the bill in line with the MPR decree on clean governance?

One is transparency -- meaning the opening up of the police to the public's right to obtain information on state administration in an honest and nondiscriminatory manner, with appropriate attention being paid to the protection of individual and group rights as well as state secrets.

The aim of this principle is to encourage the police to become more open to the public about their activities.

Transparency is particularly required in "big" cases allegedly implicating the Indonesian Military (TNI) or its members, such as the recent cases involving counterfeiting, offshore fuel sales, the shooting of students, and the explosion at the Jakarta Stock Exchange. So far the police are still showing reluctance when having to deal with TNI members.

Transparency is not only aimed at protecting the public interest but also preventing undesirable behavior on the part of police and military members.

The next problem is to whom the police must be transparent bearing in mind the many confidential aspects involved. There has only been occasional transparency, such as when the police have had to provide explanations to legislators.

Questions remain, however, such as when police summoned members of the legislature's special committee investigating the "Bruneigate" and "Buloggate" scandals. The legislators rejected the summonses saying that police should have summoned those named in their investigation report.

In such cases an independent institution to monitor and supervise police conduct is needed -- something similar to the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK). In the United States this is known as the Citizen Review Board or in Hong Kong, the Organization Review Committee.

One of the main functions of such institutions lies in their powers to order a halt to police investigations within a checks and balances format in the event of an obvious lack of evidence.

In the absence of such institutions, decisions to continue or discontinue investigations are vulnerable to corruption, collusion and nepotism.

The next problem is, which police institutions should be required to account for their actions? Given the newly implemented regional autonomy, accountability is required of the police at the regency level (polres), with the force concerned being answerable to its local council.

This is supported by the fact that the police are responsible for security across the country and, like it or not, regencies must entrust security to their police forces, and must therefore contribute to the police budget in their localities.

Besides, the police hold judicial functions along with the district courts and prosecutors' offices.

The police must also apply accountability -- which means that each and every activity related to state administration must be accounted for in accordance with the law to the people, the ultimate repository of state sovereignty.

Look closely at the annual reports of the National Police chief and regional police chiefs and compare one regional police report with another. One can conclude that first, there is no standard report, and second, that such reports never reflect reality.

These reports are certainly not trustworthy and cannot be used as reference material by researchers. Why do such things happen? In addition to not being compulsory, such reports are not considered to be a form of accountability which requires the approval of the constituents. This paradigm might go along the lines of, aren't the police part of the executive branch of government, and aren't police reports covered by the accountability statement the President delivers to the MPR annual session?

Such a paradigm is out of date, especially given that the appointment of the National Police chief differs from that of Cabinet ministers. Accordingly, the police chief should therefore be accountable to the people, and his report should be capable of being accepted or rejected by the legislature or local councils, similar to the way in which a company's board of directors must collectively account to the company's shareholders.

Meanwhile, the debate over who is in charge of public order ended with the issuance of MPR Decrees No. 6 and 7 of 1998. The police are the only organization vested with authority over security and public order.

The main challenge facing the police is the current spirit of separatism in various areas, and the euphoria of "government by (local) politicians" who are against anything smelling remotely of the "center". The police must become a unifying agent in the unitary republic without neglecting human rights, and must become an example as regards the implementation of regional autonomy.

However, the country's trauma under the New Order has shown clearly that unlimited autonomy becomes a disaster when not counterbalanced by public control, as pointed out in the MPR decree on clean governance. The past has also shown how such control is impossible without the support of another independent body, which should be provided for in the draft of the police bill.

The writer is Secretary General of the Jakarta-based Indonesian Police Watch, a nongovernmental group.