RI urged to ratify UN graft convention

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In the months following the downfall of former president Soeharto in May 1998, the government sent a special team to look for stolen money allegedly stashed away by the former dictator in Europe. The team returned home empty handed.

Many doubted that the team was actually serious about its work. But if it was, and it still failed to come up with the goods, what could be done?

One possible solution may be provided by a new United Nations convention, after it comes into effect.

A senior UN official suggested on Wednesday that Indonesia soon ratify the UN Convention Against Corruption, which introduces a new concept of asset recovery in a bid to boost the anticorruption drive around the world.

UN Office on Drugs and Crime's senior crime prevention and criminal justice officer Dmitri Vlassis said that the introduction of the rules on asset recovery provided hope for those countries facing problems with corrupt leaders who had transferred their ill-gotten gains abroad.

"If the convention was implemented, it would be much more difficult for corrupt leaders to find a place to hide the proceeds of their crimes," he told reporters on the sidelines of a two-day seminar organized by the foreign affairs ministry.

Vlassis hoped Indonesia would have the political will to ratify and implement the convention, given the fact that Indonesia was originally one of its proponents.

"Indonesia invested greatly in its negotiation. We hope it will continue to demonstrate political will, especially now. We at the UN are ready to help as much as we can," he said.

Mutual legal assistance and cooperation between countries is mandatory in asset recovery cases under the convention, Vlassis said.

Indonesia, which signed the convention in December, is one of 111 signatory countries. Six of them -- Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico, El Savador, Namibia and Sri Lanka -- have ratified the convention.

The convention is due to take effect in December 2005 after 30 countries have signed it. The UN will oversee the implementation of the convention.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirajuda has said that the government was hoping to submit a bill ratifying the convention to the House of Representatives for deliberation soon.

"We have faced some administrative difficulties, but we will soon finish it and submit it to the House," he said without elaborating.

Criminal law expert at the University of Indonesia Harkristuti Harkrisnowo said that the convention contained some breakthroughs as it provided a mechanism for asset recovery, including a provions that bank secrecy could not be used as an excuse to thwart the process.

"We have yet to introduce legislation to enable the state to recover illicit funds," she said.

Predicting that it would not be easy to implement the convention in Indonesia, Hakristuti suggested that the government and the House put in place the necessary ancillary regulations to make the convention effective here.

"We badly need it because high-profile corruptors have stolen huge amounts of money from the people and laundered it abroad. We need to get it back to develop the country," she said.

The new convention covers corruption in both the private and governmental sectors.

Selected provisions of the UN Convention against Corruption:

Article 40: Bank Secrecy Each State Party shall ensure that, in the case of domestic criminal investigations of offenses established in accordance with this Convention, there are appropriate mechanisms available within its domestic legal system to overcome obstacles that may arise out of the application of bank secrecy laws.

Article 51: General Provisions The return of assets pursuant to this chapter is a fundamental of the Convention and State Parties shall afford one another the widest measure of cooperation and assistance in this regard.