Peril of war against corruption

Peril of war against corruption

By Peter Kerr

This is the first of two articles on efforts to fight
corruption in recent months.

JAKARTA (JP): Legislator Laksamana Sukardi, speaking recently
at a public discussion on legal reform, said a diplomat friend
had told him over dinner that he had good news.

"He said Indonesia had been upgraded on the list of most
corrupt countries to number three after Nigeria -- because we'd
been able to bribe the organizing committee."

The joke raised a chorus of laughter from hundreds of
businessmen, academics, diplomats and others gathered at
Jakarta's Grand Hyatt hotel last month to consider the future of
Indonesia.

Some commented wryly that the conference sub-title --
"Emerging from the Crisis" -- was rather optimistic, with the
economy in tatters, the rupiah badly battered, outlying regions
in turmoil, and the legislature deadlocked against a president
whose supporters said they were willing to die for him.

It is almost three years since Indonesians threw out the
Soeharto regime, and the dreams that millions of people had of
clean, democratic government, legal reform and a purge of
corruption lie thwarted and frustrated.

The factionalized House of Representatives is jostling for
power and its rewards, determined to bring down an enfeebled
President who is overwhelmingly regarded as having failed to
light a way forward.

Soeharto and his family and cronies have for the most part
escaped justice, institutional corruption remains rampant, the
Supreme Court has defied efforts to weed out judges and officials
alleged to be corrupt, and members of the post-Soeharto
legislature are themselves accused of frustrating change.

Amid the disappointment of reformers is a warning that
Indonesia is entering an even darker period, where "money
politics" takes advantage of new democratic freedoms, and
provincial "mini Soehartos" build their own corrupt empires under
the banner of regional autonomy.

With May 21 marking the anniversary of Soeharto's fall, how
can it be that Indonesia has failed so miserably to deliver on
the anti-corruption ideals of the reformasi movement?

One reason, according to reformers who agree that change of
any consequence will take longer than their lifetimes, is the
systemic nature of corruption in Indonesia.

Preman (street toughs) patrol districts extracting protection
money from businesses big and small, immigration staff demand
kickbacks to process visas, police run extortion and protection
rackets, lawyers bribe judges to win a case, companies pay
millions of dollars extra to win contracts, and illegal loggers
and miners bribe authorities to turn a blind eye.

Almost every country has corruption, but in Indonesia it is a
pervasive and accepted part of life, drawn into and drawing into
it the functions of law, government and other public
institutions.

Indonesia may not be alone but it keeps the worst company,
according to Transparency International, tying with Angola as the
world's fourth most corrupt country after Nigeria, Yugoslavia,
and in third place Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

In Asia, it is outranked only by Vietnam.

The Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy,
which conducted the 12-nation Asian survey, observes that while
graft exists almost everywhere, a country can distinguish itself
in the ability of its legal system to fight the problem, the
government's willingness to lead the effort, and the attitude of
the local population,

Indonesia currently fails on all three counts.

A glaring recent example is the attempt to bring to trial
allegedly corrupt members of Indonesia's highest judicial body,
the Supreme Court.

Under attack from the government-sponsored Joint Anti-
Corruption Team, on March 23 the court annulled the regulation
which gave the team its legal basis.

Remarkably, the judge who chaired the adjudicating panel was
also a legal adviser to one of the former Supreme Court justices
accused by the anti-corruption team of bribery.

"So there is clear evidence of conflict of interest ... but
there is no indication that (the decision) will be reviewed by
the Supreme Court," lawyer and Hukum On-Line director Ibrahim
Assegaf told the Hyatt conference, organized by consultants Van
Zorge, Heffernan and Associates.

"... it is mind-boggling that the government, which is
supposed to be supporting the joint investigating team as part of
the executive, did not take any action ... to bring this issue
back to the Supreme Court," Ibrahim said.

"So clearly this case shows there is no political will in the
powers of the state."

The newly appointed Supreme Court chief justice, Professor
Bagir Manan, last week denied there had been a conflict of
interest and said there was no need to review the decision.

"I don't think there was a conflict of interest because Paulus
Lotulung (who chaired the adjudicating panel) was not
representing the judge in front of the court," Bagir told The
Jakarta Post.

Lotulung had simply been a member of the judges' association
which had questioned the former justice about the bribery
allegation prior to the case coming before the Supreme Court, he
said.

Certainly the court's ruling and government inaction raised
barely a ripple of indignation from the public or media, inured
to such perceived inconsistencies.

None of this was a surprise to Adi Andojo Soetjipto, the
former deputy chief justice who blew the whistle on Supreme Court
corruption in 1996.

Adi resigned as chairman of the anti-corruption team on March
19 after it had failed to prosecute any cases, complaining that
the government had not given his group enough power.

In an interview with The Jakarta Post he estimated that about
85 per cent of Indonesia's judiciary was corrupt. Separately,
Indonesia Corruption Watch has claimed that only five of 41
Supreme Court justices it investigated cannot be bought.

"As long as the current political situation exists in
Indonesia, nothing will happen in fighting corruption," Adi said.

Despite assurances from President Abdurrahman Wahid, the
government had not introduced a law giving the anti-corruption
team adequate powers, he said.

And while the Supreme Court annulment was legally sound, it
could have been delayed until August when the anti-corruption
team will be wound up and a commission with greater powers
established.

"The people's demand now is to fight corruption; why did the
Supreme Court take that decision? The timing is not correct, I
think ..."

Adi's successor as chairman of the anti-corruption team,
Krissantono, said it would continue trying to prosecute two
senior Supreme Court officials and three serving and former
judges for allegedly taking bribes.

But, acknowledging the blow from the annulment, he said:
"Maybe the hopes and expectations people have in us are too great
in the short time (of the team's one-year life).

"People hope we can bring to trial a range of corruptors, but
frankly speaking we cannot fulfill this expectation.

"We have no full authority like an anti-corruption commission
and we have only had a short duration, only one year, to prepare
for the Anti-Corruption Commission.

"But now we begin to touch the untouchable men ... only touch,
maybe."

Bagir, who has publicly acknowledged the presence of corrupt
judges and justices, criticised the anti-corruption team and said
it would be best to await the "more effective" Anti-Corruption
Commission.

He pledged to cooperate with the commission, and to
investigate corrupt judges himself as a matter of urgency.

In the absence of immediate substantial reform, however,
prominent lawyer and longstanding anti-corruption campaigner
Todung Mulya Lubis is calling for constitutional change.

"I think the government has not been serious about fighting
corruption: not under Soeharto, not under Habibie, nor under
Wahid," Todung told The Jakarta Post.

He supported Abdurrahman's proposal to reverse the burden of
proof, which would require people accused of corruption to prove
they gained their wealth legally, but said it would not work as
suggested.

"He knows the judiciary is very corrupt so he knows it is not
going to work," Todung said.

"The agencies who deal with corruption are equally corrupt,
and they act with impunity."

Constitutional change to introduce electoral and judicial
reforms was vital.

"We need to change with a clear paradigm for transparency of
the judiciary, and for regional autonomy."

The writer is Deputy Foreign Editor of The Sydney Morning
Herald newspaper. He is spending four months at The Jakarta Post
under a Medialink fellowship, funded by the Australia-Indonesia
Institute.