Prosecutions indicted over poor showing

Prosecutions indicted over poor showing

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Huuuu...! That's what you get when you skip classes all the
time," spectators at the Anticorruption Court in Jakarta once
mocked a prosecutor who was warned by the presiding judge to
deliver clear and intelligent questions to the defendant,
Abdullah Puteh, who has been suspended as Aceh governor while
being tried for graft.

About five kilometers away, a 25-year-old man sat in a corner
of a West Jakarta courthouse holding a cell phone. He had figured
out how to obtain Rp 4 million (about US$430) in a week to meet
the prosecutor's demand so that the sentence demand for his
bother, on trial on drug charges, could be reduced from the
expected four years.

Both cases illustrate the poor quality of state prosecutors
and rampant bribery among them, which drew the attention of the
Asian Development Bank (ADB) when assessing the performance of
Indonesian law enforcement agencies.

"Like the police and courts, this prestigious (prosecutor's)
institution is widely criticized for failing to bring about
justice. The poor quality of prosecution was shown in highly
publicized cases, such as those related to human rights abuses in
East Timor as well as in corruption cases against high-ranking
officials," said the ADB report titled Government Assessment
Report-Indonesia.

It said no specific measure existed for evaluating the
performance of prosecutors, including those in management
positions.

"The skills required for management positions are not defined,
so candidates are not necessarily selected on the basis of their
skills or the needs of the organization," the 125-page report
states.

However, the ADB also noticed that reforms undertaken by the
institution were centralized and top-down in nature. Some key
aspects of reform were beyond the institution's jurisdiction,
such as the requirement of the Office of the State Minister of
Administrative Reforms to restructure the organization.

The report also stresses that the institutional reform of the
public prosecution services depend merely on the political will
and leadership of the president and coordination between several
ministers and the House of Representatives, which causes it to
owe allegiance to the state.

An unnamed source at the Attorney General's Office confirmed
that rapid changes in the institution's leadership partly
contributed to the slow pace of reform.

"We have had six bosses in six years. What kind of reform can
be done under such circumstances? Worst still, I once had four
bosses in a week! That happened during Habibie's presidency.
Monday it was Ghalib; Tuesday Faisal Tanjung; Wednesday Muladi,
and Friday it was Ismudjoko. Each assumed office for just one day
before they were replaced by the president. I bet not even one
neighborhood (RT) head has experienced such a thing," said the
source.

The poor quality of prosecutors is made worse by the minimum
budget the office receives from the state. This has led the
institution to look for revenue outside of the budget, which
according to a source came from traffic tickets, court fines and
other court-related revenue.

"Relying on off-budget revenues has far-reaching consequences
for the organization. First, it institutionalizes corruption,
undermining the very purpose of the prosecution services in
promoting law and justice ... Second, performance cannot be
accurately reviewed if major parts of financing are unknown," the
report said. (006)