Graft bill committee questioned

Jakartapost, Tue, 09/09/2008
Skepticism has mounted over whether the Corruption Court bill will benefit the country's fight against white collar crime as some House of Representatives legislators debating it are implicated in graft cases.

With the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) shocking legislators with a series of arrests for alleged bribery, fears have arisen that the legislators will take revenge by undermining the court's independence, authority and credibility.

Some of the legislators on the 49-strong special committee debating the bill are implicated in graft cases and have been summoned by the KPK, including Sujud Sirajuddin of the National Mandate Party and Trimedya Panjaitan and Tjahyo Kumolo, both members of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

However, the KPK has yet to level allegations at the politicians.

Sujud, a member of Commission IV on forestry and environment, is implicated in a bribery case concerning the distribution of forest conversion permits in Bintan, Riau Island province. Al Amin Nur Nasution of the United Development Party is now standing trial in the case.

Trimedya was also mentioned in an illegal logging case in which businessman Adelin Lis was convicted. The Indonesia Corruption Watch said it had documents showing that Adelin had transferred Rp 250 million to Trimedya in 2006.

Trimedya, however, denied the allegation, saying the account was not his.

Tjahyo was mentioned by dismissed PDI-P politician Agus Condro as one of the party's legislators to have received money following the election of Miranda S. Goeltom as BI senior deputy governor in 2003.

"With all the conditions, it's going to be very tough for the House to produce a law at all. We are afraid that they will play with time to let deliberations pass the deadline set by the Constitutional Court in December 2009," said Zainal Arifin Muchtar, executive director of the Center for Anti-Corruption Study (Pukat) at the Gajah Mada University.

He said he was afraid that if the House could produce a law, it would be weaker than the original government draft.

The most contentious issue concerns the government's proposal to allow district court chief judges to elect the panel of judges.

Under the existing law, any panel hearing a corruption case must consist of two career judges and three ad hoc judges.

The mechanism was prompted by public distrust in career judges and the judiciary, which has long been associated with a "court mafia".

Danang Widyoko of the ICW expressed hope that the politicians could use under-way election campaigning as momentum to support a strong court to gain public sympathy.

Both Mahfudz Siddiq of the Prosperous Justice Party and Lukman Hakim Saiffudin of the United Development Party said they hoped the factions could withdraw their members implicated in graft cases from the committee to avoid vested interest.