Prosecutors berated for rally in support for boss

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

State prosecutors have come under fire for showing blind support for their boss, Attorney General M.A. Rachman, amid mounting demands for his resignation following his failure to declare all of his assets.

A retired prosecutor and a legal expert branded the prosecutors unprofessional on Thursday, and said their behavior would do nothing to help eradicate corruption.

Antonius Sujata, a former deputy attorney general for special crimes, and Todung Mulya Lubis, who was once assigned to audit the Attorney General's Office, both said that such blind support could backfire on the office.

"The prosecutors have been mixing their professional and personal affairs ... such support is counterproductive because it has sparked a negative impression among other legal practitioners and strengthened the public resolve.

"Moreover, it will further reduce the people's trust in the office as the vanguard institution in the war against corruption," Antonius told The Jakarta Post.

Law No. 5/1991 on the prosecutorial authority requires the office's officials to support the attorney general in the carrying out of his duties because, as is explicitly stated in the law, the prosecutorial authority is collective based upon a hierarchical chain of command.

However, according to Antonius, this provision did not justify the widely publicized support for Rachman in respect of his personal affairs.

Antonius, who chairs the Ombudsman Commission, was discharged from his deputy attorney general and later took early retirement after he declared former president Soeharto a corruption suspect in 1999, less than a year after the former ruler handed over the presidency to his deputy B.J. Habibie.

Todung took a harsher stance, condemning the declaration of solidarity and support by all the deputy attorneys general and the Union of Indonesian Prosecutors (Persaja), which he said only reflected the militaristic culture in the office.

As a public institution that required transparency and accountability, he argued, such willingness to support a superior or colleague to the bitter end was no longer acceptable.

"There should be no such support given in a profession. Especially in Rachman's case where his subordinates should support the success of the probe and announce the results, whatever they may be, to show their professionalism," Todung told the Post.

The attorney general has come under spotlight after the Public Servants' Wealth Audit Commission (KPKPN) established a special inquiry to follow up on a tip from a whistle-blower that Rachman failed to report a luxury house in the Graha Cinere housing complex, Depok.

Reports said President Megawati Soekarnoputri had summoned Rachman twice ordering him to clarify the situation or else resign.

Acting assistant attorney general Bachtiar Fachry Nasution argued on Wednesday that the prosecutors had displayed their solidarity for Rahman to counter speculation that had discredited the office and caused confusion among the prosecutors in regional offices.

He also said the prosecutors' union would set up an ethics committee to investigate the whistle-blower, Kito Irkhamni, who was previously a contractor and who built the Cinere house for Rachman, but not the attorney general, who admitted to having charged fees for legal consultancy work for East Java businessmen when he was serving in the province.

"The Attorney General heads the union's supervisory board. Besides, we still have to check whether those East Java businesspeople who are said to have given him money were his relatives or not," Fachry told reporters.

But Antonius rejected such an ethics committee, saying that the 1991 law already provided for the establishment of a disciplinary committee in the office to serve as a forum in which prosecutors accused of wrong-doing could defend themselves.

"Instead of trying to protect members through such a show of support, the association should concentrate on its main function, which is to improve its members' professionalism," he remarked.