TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Fears rekindled over alleged ploy to undermine KPK
Observers are wary of institutionalized efforts to debilitate the fight against corruption, citing recent setbacks that have weakened the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)
Change Size
O
bservers are wary of institutionalized efforts to debilitate the fight against corruption, citing recent setbacks that have weakened the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
The latest blow came when KPK deputies Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M. Hamzah saw a request for a review of their corruption trial turned down by the Supreme Court. Experts had argued that the request, submitted by the Attorney General’s Office, had been legally weak in the first place.
However, KPK spokesman Johan Budi said the court’s ruling did not necessarily remove Bibit and Chandra from their posts.
He said Sunday the two deputies were still needed by the anticorruption body. “When they were suspended after being declared suspects by the police, our performance declined significantly.”
Constitutional law expert Saldi Isra said the AGO’s weak cessation letter and its inevitable overturning added credence to the view that the government wanted to “get at Bibit and Chandra” through “the judge’s gavel”.
“It is hard to blame the court for the legal choices the AGO made.”
Last December, the AGO issued a prosecution cessation order after facing public pressure to halt the deputies’ pretrial process, which had been requested by bribery convict Anggodo Widjojo. Anggodo accused the deputies of abuse of power and of blackmailing his brother, fugitive graft suspect Anggoro Widjojo.
The AGO based the cessation order on the possibility of social unrest if the trial went ahead, an argument that is not recognized by the Indonesian legal system.
As a result, the letter was overturned at the state court and high court. Prosecutors then filed a case review with the Supreme Court, which overturned it on the grounds that it did not possess the authority to review a pretrial case.
Asep R. Fajar of the Indonesian Legal Roundtable said that the best legal option available to prosecutors in this case was deponeering, which was passed over.
Deponeering is an Indonesian term for a legal action whereby the AGO can halt a case, with the backing of parliament, for the sake of national stability.
“If they had still wanted to move forward with the cessation letter, they could have undertaken additional examinations or included the legal facts in Anggodo’s trial as fresh evidence for a new letter,” he said.
Anggodo received a four-year prison sentence for offering Rp 5.1 billion (US$566,100) as a bribe to the KPK deputies to stop the commission’s investigation into Anggoro.
Prosecutors rejected deponeering, saying it would take time to obtain lawmakers’ approval.
However lawmaker Gayus Lumbuun said the House of Representatives “simply provides recommendations in this process”.
Febri Diansyah from the Indonesia Corruption Watch said that the Supreme Court, as the foremost court authority, had also played its role by rejecting the pretrial case review. “This is a victory for Anggodo that could consolidate anti-KPK powers,” he said.
Saldi said the already weakened KPK would be further debilitated because Bibit and Chandra would have to be suspended if they went on trial, leaving only Mohammad Yasin and Haryono Umar to lead the antigraft body.
“The key to the KPK’s salvation now rests in the President,” Saldi said.
“The House of Representatives must quickly perform fit and proper tests to name the KPK’s new chief.”
The President is set to select a new KPK chief from two candidates; Bambang Widjojanto and Busyro Muqoddas. (gzl)
