T

he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has filed an appeal against the South Jakarta District Court'€™s controversial pretrial verdict that ruled in favor of former Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) head Hadi Poernomo in a high profile tax scandal involving the nation'€™s third-largest lender, Bank Central Asia (BCA).

Acting KPK deputy chairman Johan Budi confirmed that the antigraft body had submitted the motion to the higher court saying that the antigraft body was challenging the verdict because the order forced it to violate the KPK'€™s own law, which said that the KPK was prohibited from halting any graft investigation.

'€œThe verdict violates the law. That'€™s one of the points that we use in our defense statement in our appeal,'€ Johan said on Tuesday.

On May 26, South Jakarta District Court judge Haswandi, in his verdict on Hadi'€™s pretrial request, ordered the KPK to halt its probe into Hadi as it was deemed illegal because no KPK investigators came from the National Police or the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO), the only two institutions that could employ investigators.

The KPK named Hadi, in his capacity as the Finance Ministry'€™s director general of taxation, a suspect in April 2014 after it found out that the former BPK chief had allegedly abused his authority by discriminating in BCA'€™s favor by approving its request for tax leniency over the restructuring of bad loans worth Rp 5.7 trillion (US$431 million) in 1999, which the KPK claimed to have caused more than Rp 2 trillion in state losses: the amount the bank should have paid to the state.

The South Jakarta District Court made the pretrial order after the KPK stepped up its investigation by bringing BCA president director Jahja Setiaatmadja to its headquarters for questioning in the case on May 22. Jahja underwent 11 hours of questioning in a KPK interrogation room.

The KPK has so far dealt with three controversial pretrial verdicts after it was involved in a standoff with the National Police in January.

To make matters worse for the KPK, the Constitutional Court (MK) confirmed that pretrial hearings could challenge the decisions of law enforcement institutions to name suspects in criminal cases.

The South Jakarta district court ordered the KPK to halt its probes into two other graft cases following the MK decision.

The KPK is asking an appellative court to annul Haswandi'€™s ruling as it protects Hadi and other individuals who could be implicated in the case from any future investigation by declaring that all KPK investigators are illegitimate. Thus, any future investigations could be considered illegal, as well.

In February, the South Jakarta District Court issued a pretrial verdict that forced the KPK to hand over its investigation into a bribery case involving deputy National Police chief Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan to the AGO, which later transferred the investigation to the police, by claiming that Budi was not under the KPK'€™s investigative jurisdiction.

Budi'€™s verdict came before the MK moved to expand the scope of pretrial pleas to allow them to examine the validity of someone'€™s legal status.

Meanwhile, after the MK verdict but prior to Hadi'€™s plea, the same court also made another controversial pretrial verdict by releasing former Makassar mayor Ilham Arief Sirajuddin from a KPK investigation.

Antigraft watchdogs have unveiled a plan to file for a judicial review demanding the MK uphold the KPK'€™s prerogative to employ independent investigators.

'€œWe will go to the MK to ask for a legal interpretation of the KPK'€™s authority to appoint independent investigators,'€ said Bahrain, a member of the Anticorruption Civil Society Coalition.