Tim Dodd, Jakarta – While President Abdurrahman Wahid hogs the headlines as leader of the country's reform effort, his Attorney General, Mr Marzuki Darusman, is the one sweating in the engine room dealing with the crises.

He is the key minister in every one of the major changes the Wahid Government is trying to make. Whether it is the prosecution of Mr Soeharto, justice for victims of the former president's human rights abuses, eliminating official corruption, investigating Indonesia's role in East Timor or removing the army from politics, the point man is Mr Darusman.

He is even bearing the major load for reviving Indonesia's wrecked economy, where the prospects for recovery are being destroyed by the inability of the corrupt court system to make insolvent companies bankrupt. This means the assets of failed banks, now held by the Government, cannot be liquidated to help pay for the recapitalisation of the banking system.

His job is herculean, and it starts in his own department, corrupted through and through during Mr Soeharto's 32-year rule. "I've already moved 80-plus people," he told The Australian Financial Review this week. He plans to make more changes and said he would overhaul his top executives this month before moving on to build a new system for recruitment, promotion and advancement of his legal staff.

Mr Darusman is in some ways an unlikely reformer because he comes from the Golkar party, the political vehicle created by former President Soeharto to keep himself in power. But he has long been a staunch advocate of democracy and human rights. In 1992 he lost his parliamentary seat due to his outspokenness. But he was a dissident who was difficult to ignore and, the following year, President Soeharto appointed him vice-chairman of the new Human Rights Commission, which gave him a political platform. Meanwhile he stayed in Golkar and became deputy party chairman during the Habibie era.

Now, as Attorney-General, his reform agenda is never ending. This week he imposed a city arrest on former President Soeharto, preventing him from travelling outside the Jakarta area while the investigation into his corruption proceeds.

Mr Darusman also said his proposed new 25-member anti-corruption committee would be formed this weekend with a priority to "tackle corruption cases within the court system".

It will also have a mandate to take on cases in other tough areas including "white collar crime, banking fraud and electronic crime" and next year will be expanded into a permanent Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Then he plans to continue his shake-up of the court system by bringing in more "ad hoc" judges, who are supposed to break the cycle of corruption entrenched in the existing judiciary.

But it is difficult to find people willing to do the job. "It turns out that some of them are hesitant to have themselves appointed because of ... the risk that they will have to face possible bribes. If they try to reject that then they feel there is further risk ... which could even include personal consequences," he said.

Mr Darusman said he personally favoured a controversial proposal, not yet adopted by the Government, to bring in foreign judges temporarily to obtain clean decisions from the courts. "It would have to be a last resort. But one has to consider every option," he said.

Mr Darusman will also soon be setting up new system to officially uncover the truth about past human rights abuses in Indonesia. He faces a difficult decision over how to decide which offenders will be spared punishment in return for testifying, and which will be prosecuted and sentenced.

The new system is expected to be based on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Mr Darusman said it would be a "two-track" process. The commission would deal with less serious cases while "gross violations" would go before a new Human Rights Tribunal and be sentenced. But how will it be decided which "track" a case takes? Mr Darusman said he viewed favourably a two-year period for suspects to confess and receive amnesty.

Five months after his appointment as Attorney-General, Mr Darusman has chalked up a few wins. His inquiry into the role of former army chief General Wiranto in the destruction of East Timor provided President Wahid with the excuse to stand the general down.

And this week there were signs that the court system could deliver sound judgements. On Wednesday the Supreme Court in Jakarta overturned two decisions of lower courts which were damaging investor confidence in Indonesia.

It reinstated charges against one of the key suspects in the Bank Bali scandal, Mr Djoko Tjandra, dropped by a lower court last month. Mr Djoko's company, linked to friends of former President B.J. Habibie, last year siphoned off $130 million of government funds intended to recapitalise Bank Bali. And it reversed a decisionby a district court to immediately shut down a gold mine owned by a US company in dispute with the local government over a tax issue. But these are only small steps forward. Mr Darusman has a long way to go.