Indonesia Limits Corruption Court - WSJ.com

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By TOM WRIGHT

JAKARTA -- Indonesia's efforts to weed out corruption took a step backward on Tuesday when the country's Parliament passed a new bill diluting the powers of the nation's popular Corrupt Crimes Court.

The Court was set up in 2003 as a special body to try graft cases and has sentenced scores of politicians, central bank officials and regional governors to jail. That crackdown has won President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono praise at home and abroad for battling graft, a problem which has seriously dented foreign investor confidence in Indonesia over the past decade.

But some lawmakers and police have argued the Court's powers are too wide-ranging and could lead to abuses. The Court has a reputation for handing down harsher sentences than Indonesia's regular justice system, and its sister body, the Anti-Corruption Commission, also formed in 2003, has broad powers to investigate and prosecute corruption cases -- including setting up wiretaps without a warrant -- before passing them off to the Court for sentencing.

Anti-corruption advocates say politicians simply fear the dragnet will move their way and want to hobble the anti-corruption drive before it does.

Either way, the backlash against the Court and the Anti-Corruption Commission among some of Indonesia's elite is picking up speed, just as Mr. Yudhoyono is touring the United States after the meeting of G20 nations in Pittsburgh to drum up investment in Indonesia, one of the few world economies widely expected to post positive economic growth this year.

Investors generally have grown more favorable towards Indonesia over the past year amid signs that the vast archipelago nation is finally getting a handle on its biggest problems, including corruption and terrorism. But any backtracking on those successes could curtail investor interest at a time when other Asian economies are recovering from the worst effects of the global economic slowdown. A spokesman for Mr. Yudhoyono was not immediately available for comment.

The new bill, effective immediately, potentially weakens the Court significantly by allowing judges from the country's regular judicial system -- which is often cited by Indonesians and outside groups such as Transparency International as one of the nation's most graft-ridden institutions, with a poor record in trying corruption cases -- to form a majority on panels hearing cases at the Court. Advocacy groups say that will reduce its effectiveness.

Under previous laws, the Court had to be staffed by a majority of non-career judges recruited from among practicing lawyers, university professors and retired prosecutors.

"The reputation of career judges for corruption cases in Indonesia is not good," said Eryanto Nugroho, a researcher at the Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies, an independent legal advocacy group.

The bill was drafted by Indonesia's Ministry of Law and Human Rights and then debated in a parliamentary committee whose meetings are not open to the public. No politicians have publicly taken credit for the bill and attempts to reach Law and Human Rights Minister Andi Mattalata were not successful.

Acording to Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, a politician from the Islamic-based National Awakening Party, some politicians attempted to insert a clause into the bill that would have stripped the Anti-Corruption Commission of its powers to prosecute graft cases at the Court. She said her party and the Prosperous Justice Party, another Islamic-based party which has a reputation for battling graft, opposed the moves and that the clause was eventually dropped from the final law. It wasn't possible to independently confirm her account.

Opponents of Indonesia's corruption campaign have made other moves in recent weeks to hobble the Commission, which is also known as the KPK. Two weeks ago, Indonesian police named two senior officials of the KPK as suspects in a bribery case. Neither of the KPK deputy commissioners has been charged of a crime and both deny any wrongdoing. One of the commissioners, Chandra Hamzah, a former litigation lawyer, is well-respected among anti-corruption activists and is widely viewed as the driving force behind much of the KPK's successful work in recent years.

Police have confirmed the two are suspects but have not made further comments about the case.

Tensions between the police and the KPK intensified in July after Susno Duadji, the national police's head of criminal investigations, was wiretapped by the KPK, according to people familiar with the matter.

Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com