Reform movement will affect political elite

Reform movement will affect political elite

The fall of president Soeharto five years ago resulted in a
national commitment to reform. The Jakarta Post's Soeryo Winoto
interviewed noted lawyer and human rights activist Todung Mulya
Lubis on law reform, the main objectives of which are eradication
of corruption and the resolution of human rights violations
allegedly committed by government agencies. Below is an excerpt
of the interview.

Question: The reform movement is five year old now. In
general, do you see that much has changed in the last five years?

Answer: If you look at the five-year-old reform movement you
become aware that nothing significant has been achieved in the
country. It is true that we have produced new legislation on
general elections, with an open and proportional system. We have
also amended the article on presidential election in the 1945
Constitution and we have also produced legislation on an
anticorruption commission, which is very powerful, plus some
other laws. But, frankly speaking, there are more things the
government has failed to achieve.

To some extent, we've had setbacks because the government is
acutely aware that reforms would affect the political elite.
Could you give an example?

Freedom of information. The concept of freedom of information
offered by many has been sabotaged by the intelligence body. This
is one blatant example.

Political parties, which were expected to bring political
optimism, have had their chances to participate in the general
election severely circumscribed. The result is that only
established political parties will be eligible to participate in
the election.

However, the economy is now more stable than it was in the era
of Gus Dur (former President Abdurrahman Wahid). However, things
should be even better in the economy, because we still lag behind
our neighbors, Korea, Thailand and Malaysia.

What about law reform? Could we say it has been a failure?

There are two main areas of focus in the scenario of law
reform: Eradication of corruption, including judicial corruption,
and respect for and upholding human rights, which means the
resolution of rights violations allegedly committed by the
government in the past.

The government (the executive), the House of Representatives
and law enforcers have all failed to deal with corruption
appropriately.

Many people have allegedly stolen state funds, but few have
been brought to court.

Transparency International (an independent organization
focusing on corruption) has named Indonesia as one of the most
corrupt countries in the world, yet we have failed to make
serious moves to punish corruptors.

Let's not look at the People's Republic of China, where those
found guilty of corruption receive the death penalty. I just want
corruptors to be dealt harsh punishment. If necessary, the courts
could send them to Nusa Kambangan prison (in Central Java). Why
not? Only Mohamad "Bob" Hasan has been sent to the notorious
prison for corruption. (Bob Hasan was one of Soeharto's closest
cronies, and former minister of industry and trade).

Law enforcement has also been inappropriate, as the legal
elite, including prosecutors, judges and lawyers, has manipulated
the term "presumption of innocence". Those found guilty (of
corruption) by the courts should go to jail. Many have, however,
rejected court verdicts simply due to abuse of the term
"presumption of innocence".

Once the verdict is handed down -- if the provincial court has
upheld it -- a defendant has no option but to go to prison. The
verdict could be changed after another, stronger legal decision
is issued to annul it. Recently, we have failed to follow the
correct legal procedure.

Now, let's talk about human rights violations. We are holding
an ad hoc human rights trial on violations in East Timor. But we
should not stick only to violations in East Timor. We should also
ask if the ad hoc trial is proceeding according to international
guidelines or it's just some kind of engineered effort to restart
military aid from the U.S. It's not that easy to get the right
answer to that.

Worse still, the verdicts have all been more lenient than
those required by the law. Given this situation, the next
question is how serious is the government in dealing with human
rights violations.

If the East Timor ad hoc trials fail to conform to reasonable
legal standards, we shall also fail in other cases, such as Aceh,
Papua and others.

Do you think that legislation produced during the reform era
contains the spirit of reform?

There are two problems here. First, too few legal instruments
have been produced within the last five years. This is because
the House of Representatives has been unproductive. Second, the
few legal instruments produced have not lived up to reform agenda
expectations.
The anticorruption law is an exception.

We have to acknowledge that the (new) legislation on political
parties and general elections is better than what existed
previously.

Unfortunately, horse-trading has occurred during the passage
of other legislation through the House.

The other serious problem is that institutional reform within
the police, prosecutor's offices, the courts and lawyers'
organizations has totally failed. This happened because the
President did not have the political guts to make drastic change.
I see there is a fear that law reform could backfire on the
political elite. This has hindered national reform. There are too
many political and economic interests obstructing the reform
agenda.

What have the political parties done in their attempt at law
reform?

Political parties should have become the agents of change:
Pioneers. Unfortunately, the parties have not demonstrated their
commitment to the reform movement. In summary, we have political
parties that are no better than those in the New Order era.

What about the role of the public?

Part of the reason for optimism lies with the media. We have
the communities of the media, non-governmental organizations and
civil society. I think they have been very active and vigorous
over the last ten years. This is our political modality as a
nation, although, in reality, they have always bowed to the
political elite. But, at least, our civil society and the media
are strong enough to force the political elite to behave more
responsibly.