Without legal certainty and an impartial judicial system, our hard-gained democracy will become meaningless and could even be jeopardized. Yet more damaging, our economic development will prove futile for most of the population.

Unfortunately, we prefer to react to the President’s move by confronting it with crippling qualifications because it was made in hasty political reaction to appease the populace after the nation-wide furor over after the revelation of wide-spread collusion and conspiracy between senior police officers, state prosecutors, corruption suspects and legal case brokers.

We are afraid Yudhoyono, notorious for his diffidence and indecisiveness when it comes to reform measures, has not yet worked out a well-designed, overall process of reform for the justice sector.

In fact, his declaration of war against corruption within the judiciary was never mentioned during the preparations of his 100-day programs last month, and was not even mentioned during the national summit of Cabinet ministers, governors, regents, mayors, national and regional legislators, business and civil-society leaders late last month.        

It is in fact the mafia-like practices within the judiciary—the police, prosecutors and judges—that have made corruption so deeply entrenched in the government and private sector, thereby retaining Indonesia’s notorious ranking as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

 It is because of the corrupt judicial system, the drive against corruption, one of Yudhoyono’s top priority programs since 2004, has so far made only mediocre achievements, despite the establishment of  an overarching body with draconian powers to combat graft, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).    

The question then is what is the difference in the political environment now that should prompt us to give the benefit of the doubt to Yudhoyono’s fight against corruption during his second and final term?
There is, we think, a new factor that will generate a stronger determination on the part of  Yudhoyono to lead a more powerful battle against corruption: The tremendous public pressure ignited by the playing to the public of the wiretap recordings by the Constitutional Court last week.

The nationwide uproar over the last 10 days set off by the police’s arrogance in arresting two  KPK deputy chairmen, and the sickening state of our judiciary, as revealed by the recordings, have been such that Yudhoyono should act firmly and immediately to tackle this debacle.

Failing to regain public confidence and trust in his fight against graft could expose his 20-day-old administration to the risk of political instability. But in order to recoup the trust of the public,  the President should lead the fight against mafia in the judiciary by overhauling it.

 It  takes leadership, courage, perseverance and commitment to clean up the corrupt judicial system, to remove the culture of corruption already so strongly rooted in the national system.  

The President should seize the furor over the current face-off between the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office on one side, and the KPK on the other, as momentum with which to build up strong public support for his crackdown on corruption in the judiciary, which has become the basis for widespread graft in all other sectors.

Public support is vital to this battle because anticorruption efforts cannot succeed if they’re only supported by a few government and state agencies in the judicial system. The campaign cannot be sustained without the full participation of civil society organizations and mass media with full voice and empowerment.

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