It was only a coincidence that the verdict was made on the eve of National Press Day on Wednesday and based on the 2008 Freedom of Information Law. But the ruling will serve as a judicial precedence to force public officials and institutions to be more transparent in their conduct.

The officers’ accounts were among the hundreds of bank accounts which the Indonesian Financial Transaction Report and Analysis Centre(PPATK) found last year to be involved in suspicious transactions amounting to millions of dollars and reported to the police for further investigations under the anti-money laundering law.

However, the police leadership announced after a few weeks of “investigations” that only two of the accounts were found to be implicated in crimes, asserting that the other 15 accounts though holding hundreds of billions of rupiah were simply clean and clear as the money involved was derived from legitimate means even though the official salaries of the police officers ranged from only Rp 5 million to Rp 6 million a month.

ICW, flabbergasted by the conclusion of the police investigations, brought that case to the KIP and demanded that the commission ordered the police to reveal the information on the police officers’ accounts. Earlier in August 2005, PPATK also reported to the police chief the bank accounts of 15 senior police officers suspected of involvement in transactions of money laundering involving hundreds of billions of rupiah. But nothing was heard of the results of investigations into those accounts.

However, the latest ruling by the KIP would make it more difficult for the police to protect its officers suspected of being implicated in money laundering practices. In the future the police can no longer ignore PPATK reports on suspicious transactions involving their members because corruption watchdogs or other civil society organizations could demand, through the KIP, full disclosure on such deals.

The KIP’s decision was the second piece of good news related to the fight against corruption after the South Jakarta District Court’s ruling last week which sentenced former senior tax auditor Bahasyim Assifie to 10 years in prison for money laundering and corruption involving Rp 65 billion.

Proper enforcement of the 2008 freedom of information act indeed could provide a breakthrough in Indonesia’s commitment to reforming its bureaucracy, making the government more transparent and accountable to the public.

The law requires public officials and public institutions to provide the public wide access to information, documents related to the public interests, thereby promoting good governance and an open and democratic society and helping investigative reporting by journalists.

An effective enforcement of both laws — freedom of information and anti-money laundering — will greatly help the national campaign against corruption and other forms of malfeasance.

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