Quashing corruption should be free from interference

Quashing corruption should be free from interference

Attorney General Baharuddin Lopa will never be successful in
fighting corruption without political support from the House of
Representatives (DPR), the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)
and the President, says coordinator of Indonesian Corruption
Watch Teten Masduki.

Question: Is Attorney General Baharuddin Lopa motivated more
by his intention to uphold the supremacy of law or by political
aims in his investigation of powerful people suspected of
corruption?

Answer: Afraid of being tried, a number of figures related to
the former New Order government are now spreading propaganda
accusing Lopa of trying to bring President Abdurrahman (Gus Dur)
Wahid's political rivals to court with a target of sustaining the
President's political position after the MPR special session,
scheduled for early August.

But the fact that Lopa is also investigating three
businessmen, who were once protected by Gus Dur for political
reasons, indicate that Lopa is moving within a corridor upholding
the rule of law. (Suspects under investigation by the Attorney
General's Office include House Speaker Akbar Tandjung, chairman
of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle's DPR faction
Arifin Panigoro and MPR member Nurdin Khalid of the Golkar
Party.)

Now that he is accused of politicizing legal actions, can Lopa
succeed in trying to uphold the supremacy of the law?

It will be very difficult for Lopa to succeed without
political support, particularly from the DPR, while he is
handicapped by his own personnel at the Attorney General's
Office. Even if he is able to bring a corruption suspect to
court, his trial may not be fair, considering that "court mafia"
practices are still very strong.

What should be done to support Lopa's efforts to bring those
suspected of corruption to court and to eradicate corruption?

There must be parallel actions from various institutions. Lopa
must first clean his own office. How can he bring those accused
of corruption to court if he is still surrounded by corrupt
prosecutors? Cleaning his office of corrupt prosecutors is very
important, particularly because we cannot expect him to remain in
office until 2004 -- bearing in mind that Gus Dur's government is
currently very weak.

Minister of Justice and Human Rights Marsillam Simandjuntak
and Supreme Judge Bagir Manan must also support Lopa by ridding
courts of "dirty" judges. This is the right time to have clean
courts and clean attorney offices while we have figures of high
integrity like Lopa, Marsillam and Bagir.

Leaders at the state secretariat, a notorious center of
corruption, should also support Lopa.

However, those measures will not be possible without political
support from President Gus Dur and the DPR. Gus Dur, for example,
should not politically intervene in Lopa's actions.

The DPR must also support Lopa in his efforts to bring those
accused of corruption, including senior figures, to court. If DPR
members want to dissuade the President from political
intervention they should not use this as a pretext for hampering
Lopa from investigating their own corrupt colleagues.

Isn't Gus Dur consistent in eradicating corruption?

No. The fact that he has not initiated any efforts to reform
the law to clean courts of corruption, create new regulations to
complete our law system, reform the bureaucracy to hinder
possible corruption, dismiss corrupt executives from state-owned
enterprises and act as a model for clean leadership indicates
that he has no political will to eradicate corruption.

Are MPR and DPR members also inconsistent in eradicating
corruption?

Oh, yes. The MPR has indeed issued anti-corruption decisions
but they are no more than archives because the MPR, and also the
DPR, have not made any concrete steps to support their
implementation. Corrupt practices, which used to be concentrated
around the authoritarian power-holder, therefore, have now --
during this era of democracy -- become anarchic. (Such practices)
are available at any levels of any institutions, including the
DPR and the MPR.

Money politics, for example, is obvious during the election of
local leaders. It is not strange to notice that the MPR/DPR
compound has now become a parking lot for luxury cars.

Now that Lopa is under fire, can he retain his position even
after the MPR special session?

It will be difficult. Because almost all political parties
collect their funds from sources linked to corruption, Lopa will
always encounter hurdles from political groups on his position.
Even his recent promotion as attorney general was actually
opposed by many party leaders.

Does the Attorney General's Office need more legal support?

Yes. At least, the office needs to be supported by a new law
prescribing it as an autonomous institution, so that it cannot be
intervened by the President, nor by the DPR, whose members mostly
have no integrity. The fact that recent legal processes of some
government officials and businessmen were strongly opposed by DPR
and MPR members indicate that they lack integrity or commitment
to eradicate corruption.

How can we clean the office of corrupt prosecutors if their
corruption cannot be proved?

There should be measures enabling us to use their unrealistic
abundance of wealth as evidence for corruption because bribes can
be made in various forms, such as fees for lecturing or
consultation.(Rikza Abdullah)