Stiff sanctions needed for crooked lawyers

Stiff sanctions needed for crooked lawyers

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Who helps criminals before they get arrested? The answer:
Acquaintances. And who helps criminals after they get arrested?
The answer: Lawyers ... !!"

That anecdote, taken from Stan Rose's book The Joke's on
Lawyer, precisely describes the public reputation of lawyers in
Indonesia.

Bribery, extortion and document forgery are seen as common
practice in the country's courts.

The case of Elza Syarief, a lawyer the City Police arrested on
Monday for allegedly bribing two witnesses to lie under oath, is
seen by many as just the tip of the iceberg of the crimes
committed by lawyers here. Which is rather ironic, given the
stated commitment to legal supremacy in this new era of reform.

To achieve this commitment, the country's legal apparatus,
including lawyers, must be clean and honest. Otherwise, legal
supremacy will never materialize.

The country does have regulations to govern lawyers. These
include a 1987 joint statement by the Supreme Court and the
Ministry of Justice on the supervision, sanction and defense of
advocates, Criminal Code procedures and the 1989 Supreme Court
decree on the licensing of new advocates.

Adding to this, eight lawyers' associations have eight
different codes of ethics.

Still, violations of the regulations and codes are general and
widespread. Yet, the slack supervision by the bar associations
has meant that not a single lawyer has had their license to
practice law revoked.

"I have never heard of an advocate who was sanctioned by a bar
association," said noted lawyer Frans Hendra Winarta.

This should come as a surprise since the list of crimes and
misdemeanors committed by those in the profession is long.

During an ethics hearing in front of the Indonesian Advocates
and Lawyers Association (HAPI), Elza, who is the deputy
secretary-general of the association, confessed to meeting with a
judge in a corruption case in which she was representing the
defendant.

That defendant was the youngest son of former president
Soeharto, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra. The judge, Syafiuddin
Kartasasmita, was shot to death last year. Tommy is now facing
murder charges.

A lawyer meeting with a judge hearing a case he or she is
involved with is considered a violation of court ethics because
it smacks of collusion.

In a different case, lawyer Petrus Balapattyona was arrested
on charges of manipulating the testimony of a witness in a drug
case.

Neither Elza nor Petrus has been sanctioned professionally
because of an apparent lack of desire on the part of bar
associations to pursue the matters. This inability to impose
order on members means that other lawyers have little
professional fear of committing the same violations.

Bar associations are well within their rights to recommend to
the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, as well as to the
Supreme Court, that lawyers' licenses be revoked.

A bill on the advocate profession, which lawmakers are slowly
deliberating, would allow a bar association promptly to dismiss
lawyers.

But part of the problem lies in the number of bar
associations, of which Indonesia has eight.

"If a lawyer is expelled from one bar organization, he can
easily jump over to another lawyer association which has a
different code of ethics," said Frans.

Therefore, one influential bar association is needed to create
order in the profession.

"The United States Bar Association is influential. All lawyers
are bound by the decisions of this organization, and it can
establish order in the profession because a lawyer's fate depends
on its decision," said Arif Gunantoko from Adhyaksa and Co. Law
Firm.

Although bar associations here have so far shown little
enthusiasm for merging into a single institution, the idea has
gained ground. As have calls for the creation of a single code of
ethics binding all lawyers.

"The Indonesian Bar Association has been given a mandate by
other organizations to create a single code of ethics for all
associations," Sudjono, the chairman of the association, told The
Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Sudjono did not mention when this code of ethics would be
revealed, simply saying it would be completed soon.

Another hopeful development is the deliberation of the bill on
the advocate profession by the House of Representatives.

If enacted, the law on advocates would include a code of
ethics for lawyers, opening the way for the regulation of the
profession.

Despite the fact that Elza has further damaged the reputation
of lawyers in the country, her case might do some good if its
proves to be the necessary impetus for the legislature to speed
up the deliberations of the advocate bill.

This in turn would help create what the reform movement has
been missing all this time: Lawyers of high integrity who uphold
the law.

List of Bar Associations
1. Ikatan Advokat Indonesia (Ikadin) : Indonesian Bar Association
2. Asosiasi Advokat Indonesia (AAI) : Indonesian Bar Association
3. Asosiasi Konsultan Hukum Indonesia (AKHI) : Association of

Indonesian Legal Consultants
4. Himpunan Konsultan Hukum Pasar Modal (HKPM) : Capital Market

Lawyer Association
5. Ikatan Penasehat Hukum Indonesia (IPHI) : Indonesian Lawyers

Association
6. Serikat Pengacara Indonesia (SPI) : Indonesian Lawyers

Alliance
7. Perkumpulan Pengacara Kepailitan (PPK) : Association of

Indonesian Bankruptcy Litigation Lawyers
8. Himpunan Advokat dan Pengacara Indonesia (HAPI) : Indonesian

Advocates and Lawyers Association