Govt adopts secrecy in prosecutor selection

Govt adopts secrecy in prosecutor selection

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite the public demands for a transparent screening process to
pick prosecutors for the ad hoc human rights trials, the Attorney
General's Office has opted to keep the names of the appointees
secret until they are inducted on Friday.

The Attorney General's Office spokesman, Barman Zahir,
confirmed on Monday that the office had named 26 prosecutors, two
of them with military backgrounds, to prosecute crimes against
humanity in East Timor in 1999.

Barman said the selection had been kept from the public in a
bid to avoid polemics.

"The prosecutors will be sworn in on Friday...no names will be
revealed until that day," he said.

Barman insisted that it was not necessary to disclose the
names as it would only evoke a public response to their
credibility and impartiality.

"Only us, the insiders, know well whether they are credible or
not," Barman claimed. "Moreover, is there any rule that obliges
us to invite advice from the public?"

The appointees, some of whom are retired, will prosecute 12
cases of rights abuses that took place before and after the UN-
sponsored East Timor popular consultation in August 1999.

For the same reason, Supreme Court Justice Benyamin
Mangkoedilaga, who heads the team screening the judges for the ad
hoc human rights tribunal, preferred to prevent the selection
process from being open to public assessment.

Benyamin said that to let the public participate in the
selection of the judges would only cause a delay in the whole
process. The rights tribunal, the first in Indonesia's history,
has come under extreme international scrutiny.

Human rights activists have long urged the government to make
known to the public, the names of the candidates beforehand in a
bid to allay fears of an engineered trial. Especially for a trial
with such delicate issues and very high stakes.

None of the lines in Law No. 26/2000 on a Human Rights
Tribunal stipulates the involvement of the public or the House of
Representatives in the assessment of candidates for judges and
prosecutors.

Article 23 of the Law states that the prosecution of gross
violations against human rights is to be carried out by the
Attorney General, who, consistent with his or her authority, can
install prosecutors comprising government officers and/or the
public for the ad hoc trial.

Line 4 of the Article specifically requires the prosecutors to
be between 40 and 65 years of age, to have studied law and have
experience as general prosecutors. They must also have some
knowledge and concern about human rights issues.