Justice for sale

The saga over the massive corruption case at Bank BNI has taken a new turn this week with new allegations of bribery and extortion between the suspects and their investigators. One would have thought that since the return of the prime suspect Adrian Waworuntu, after he had fled abroad, it should have sped up the investigation and brought the case to a close once and for all. Instead, the plot thickens.

Media Indonesia newspaper has, for the past few days, led its front page with stories about behind-the-scenes negotiations involving various players in the Rp 1.3 trillion loan scandal at the state bank. Perhaps the most damaging allegation, as far as the law enforcement agencies are concerned, came from Harris Is Artono, one of the suspects, who said that he had been asked to pay US$100,000 by a senior prosecutor to have the charges against him either dropped or mitigated. Harris, who is due to be sentenced soon for his part in the scandal, has nothing to lose by going public with such allegations.

Media Indonesia carried another story which said that two suspects also gave a check for Rp 5 billion ($550,000) to a top police investigator, again in the hopes of having their charges dropped.

But that check bounced, much to the chagrin of the red-faced cop.

All the bribe and extortion allegations have been vehemently denied by the people in question at the prosecutor's office and the National Police. But both men are now under investigation by their respective offices. Those who made the accusations will have to be questioned, this time not as suspects but as witnesses to help build the case, assuming there is one.

Does all this sound overly familiar? Perhaps. But it is not because it is the stuff our soap operas are made of. It all sounds so familiar because bribes and extortion have become very much part of the system in this country. Corruption has intruded into the political, economic, social and cultural system and also, as the BNI case shows, the justice system. It is probably so commonplace that no TV producer has ever bothered to take it up as a central theme of sinetron.

Yet, it is a drama nevertheless, and a very tragic one because, at least in real life, the villains seem to win all the time. The victims in such a plot, usually ordinary taxpaying folks who have to bear the brunt of the huge corruption costs, are not part of the scenario anyway.

But nothing could be as tragic as when the very people whom we have entrusted to lead the campaign against corruption are themselves corrupt. Sadly, it has long been an open secret that in this country, justice is for sale. The scandal surrounding the investigation of the BNI corruption case, whether true or not, is a sad reminder of the state of things with respect to our law.

Certainly, there have been many times when corruption cases crashed and burned before the final court judgment was pronounced. They can crash at a variety of points along the legal process; during the police investigation, at the prosecutors' office or during the trials. The huge inconsistencies in the sentences passed, or in the treatments given to the suspects in the BNI loan scandal are indications that many forces other than the quest for justice are at play.

Would it not be nice if, from time to time, such a saga came to a happy end for the public -- where justice was truly served. By the looks of it however, the drama surrounding the BNI corruption case is going to go on for some time. All we can do is sit back and watch, or switch to another more entertaining channel and come back from time to time. Like most sinetron dramas, the plot in corruption dramas moves slowly, if at all.