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