House launches debate on anticorruption body
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The House of Representatives has kicked off the deliberation of a bill that is being introduced to provide the legal basis for the establishment of an anticorruption commission that is expected to be armed with extraordinary powers.
House Commission II for domestic legal affairs on Monday held a hearing with a number of organizations of legal experts and non-governmental organizations to gather input for the establishment of the anticorruption commission.
The Commission II chairman, Teras Narang, said at the hearing that the anticorruption bill had defined corruption as an extraordinary crime so that Indonesia needed a powerful institution to deal with those implicated in it.
A recent Transparency International survey listed Indonesia as among the most corrupt countries in the world with a score of less then two out of an ideal score of ten. Other countries scoring two or less include Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
The proposed extraordinary powers to be given to the commission include, among others, the right to summon suspects, to conduct investigations, to charge suspects, to impose travel bans on suspects and the right to obtain information on the bank accounts of suspects.
Sudirman Said, chairman of the Indonesian Society for Transparency (MTI), stressed the need for the anticorruption commission to be free of political interference as independence would constitute the soul of its existence.
"If there are still political considerations in other commissions, we sincerely hope that the anticorruption commission will be free from such political interests," Sudirman said.
Teras said the formation of the anticorruption commission was a must under Anticorruption Law Number 20/2001, which amended Law Number 31/1999.
Those participating in the hearing included representatives of the Indonesian Advocates Indonesian (Ikadin), Indonesian Judges Association (Ikahi), Indonesian Jurists Association (Persahi), Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), MTI and Police Watch, as well as former justice Adi Andojo Soetjipto.
Adi said that since the level of corruption in Indonesia was among the worst in the world, the effort to eliminate it could not rely solely on ordinary legal means like the articles of the criminal code.
"If we use the conventional approach, we will not be able to fight against corruption ... Therefore we need a powerful institution to conduct investigations," he said.
According to Adi, corruption in Indonesia was part of the paternalistic culture applied by many Indonesians that included such things as presenting tributes to superiors.
Such practices flourished during the autocratic government of former president Soeharto.
Zakiyah, who heads ICW's legal division, underlined the importance of the new draft law in clearly specifying the powers of the anticorruption commission, thereby avoiding multiple interpretations.
Zakiyah suggested, as an example, that the anticorruption commission should be given the power to take over a corruption case that was being handled by the police or Attorney General's Office if it appeared that neither of the two institutions were unable to solve the problem.