Legalities leave fraud diploma cases unreported

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Although the Jakarta General Elections Committee (KPUD) has dropped 23 legislative candidates from the candidacy list for submitting fake school diplomas, the Jakarta Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu Jakarta) has yet to file any report with the police.

"We have not reported the fake document case to the police because we see it as a criminal case," Panwaslu Jakarta chairman Sarluhut Napitupulu told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

"We call on any institution to file reports (on fake documents submission) because the case is not a violation of the General Elections Law. It is not our task to report it."

Sarluhut argued that about half of the 23 legislative candidates were currently serving as councillors in the city. Therefore, he said, they had been using the same fake diplomas since the previous election in 1999.

"That's why we consider it purely as a crime," he said.

KPUD had planned to file reports on the case to the police since early this month after the documents in question were confirmed as counterfeit by the Ministry of National Education. However, KPUD has not decided on which regulation should been used: the Criminal Code or the General Elections Law.

KPUD deputy chairman Hamdan Rasyid had said earlier that the commission would prefer to charge the suspects under Article 263 of the Criminal Code on counterfeit documents, which carries a maximum sentence of six years imprisonment.

"We prefer the Criminal Code because it carries a heavier punishment than the Election Law's Article 137 that only carries a maximum of three months in prison," he said.

Before the KPUD managed to file the report, the Institution of Regional Administration Research and Development (LP3D) already took the initiative to bring the case to the police.

Since LP3D used the General Elections Law in their report, the police rejected it and said that violations of the law should have been reported to Panwaslu.

So far, the Jakarta Police have handled only one case of a fake diploma of a legislative candidate from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Sarluhut said that the case was reported not by Panwaslu but by PDI-P itself.

Despite many violations of the Elections Law, only one case has been brought to court.

The Central Jakarta District Court, which hosted the first trial on general elections violations, only fined a businessman and four employees for early campaigning on Tuesday. The fines were Rp 200,000 for the businessman and Rp 100,000 each for the employees.