U.S. ambassador calls on prosecutors to restore trust
U.S. ambassador calls on prosecutors to restore trust
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The United States Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph L. Boyce has
urged prosecutors in the country to win back the public trust in
the state's legal institutions by showing high integrity and
discretion.
The ambassador said that because public prosecutors were civil
servants who worked on a government payroll, in a democracy, they
were, as a matter of fact, accountable to the people.
"Meeting the expectations of the Indonesian people and gaining
their trust and confidence is the key ingredient in maintaining
the rule of law," he said in a seminar on management of public
prosecution here on Friday.
He said the only thing that stood between order and chaos was
respect for the rule of law, and if the trust was deteriorating
the people might take the law into their own hands.
To effectively maintain order and to ensure justice in a
democracy, the entire justice sector, as an institution, must
perform in a fair and impartial manner to gain public trust, he
said.
The envoy's statement came amidst mounting public skepticism
over the country's poor law enforcement that has, for many years,
been regarded as one of the most corrupt in the world, along with
the police and the judiciary.
Earlier, the National Law Commision (KHN) branded the Attorney
General's Office as the most secretive component of the legal
system in the country and must therefore reform to regain the
public trust.
Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, a KHN member, said such reform should
be aimed at establishing a transparent and accountable Attorney
General's Office, one which also involved public participation.
She said that it needs to be restructured all the way down to
the office's employees, who were resistant to reform. Such a
program would ideally include recruitment, training and
monitoring of the prosecutors.
Apart from the prosecutor's, Boyce also asserted that the
police and the judiciary should make every effort to restore
their tarnished image.
Forty prosecutors from all over the country attended the
seminar and discussed a variety of issues including upholding
transparency and accountability.
The seminar also dealt with how to handle corruption cases,
money laundering and cyber-crimes.
Later in the day, Deputy Attorney General Soewarsono said that
it would be an uphill battle for the public prosecutors to regain
the public's confidence.
"However, we have taken efforts to improve our human
resources," he said without elaborating.