T

he government of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo has not done enough to prove its commitment to anticorruption; instead, double back-to-back blunders it has committed have already much undermined public trust in its pledge to fight graft.

First, the government failed to protect the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) from systematic weakening that finally forced it to give up an investigation into a high-profile case involving the former sole candidate for the position of police chief. Second, and most recently, it has offered corruption convicts generosity, which does not reflect any sense of justice except for the fraudsters.

Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly said last week that through a revision of a 2012 government regulation, the government would relax strict requirements for corruptors to receive remissions. If signed by the President, graft convicts are entitled to reduced prison terms if they act as justice collaborators and pay back the state money they stole.

Yasonna was simply stating the obvious and will contribute little to the war on corruption that the country has not won.

The 2003 UN Convention against Corruption, which Indonesia has ratified, suggests '€œspecial treatment'€ for graft suspects who can lead law enforcers to their partners in crime. But it does not necessarily justify remission because judges normally take a graft defendant'€™s cooperation with law enforcers into account in delivering their verdict.

When it comes to restitution, the law clearly says corruptors must pay or else their assets will be seized to cover the state losses they have inflicted.

Indeed, as every rule always has an exception, the regulation has never been rigidly enforced as in the past, the government did not exclude corruption and drug criminals as well as terrorists, the subjects of the regulation, from the list of remission awardees. Some prominent, politically connected graft convicts have even received conditional release simply because of their '€œgood behavior'€.

Then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued the regulation to provide a new deterrent effect to the national drive against graft, terrorism and drug offenses as the three were declared extraordinary crimes.

Ever since the regulation came into effect, however, the public has hardly been able to spot extraordinary measures from the government to uproot corruption.

Inconsistent implementation of the regulation in the past was a mistake that the new government has to rectify. But now that the current government plans to formalize the inconsistency, corruption eradication will no longer constitute a priority in its law enforcement agenda. The plan further negates the President'€™s campaign platform of Nawacita (nine goals), which includes clean governance.

Even if, after mounting public pressure, the government finally shelves its plan, it does not remove its intention. Like a crime, it will only wait for the right opportunity to materialize. Only time will tell when.