Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – The government will need a law, and not a mere, decree, if it wishes to regulate wiretapping operations, say anticorruption activists.
"Wiretaps must be regulated in the form of a law, which is what the Constitutional Court ruled on recently," Indonesia Corruption Watch's (ICW) Emerson Yuntho told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
"So if the government wants to regulate wiretaps in the form of a decree or regulation, and not a law, then it means the government is going against the court's ruling.
"The danger with having wiretaps regulated by decree is the potential for the government to ignore public input when deliberating such a decree."
The call for future wiretaps to be regulated came from Information and Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring.
Tifatul argued a regulation on the issue was needed to prevent future disputes between institutions with wiretapping authority.
The minister also proposed that wiretaps be handled by a single institution and that they require court approval, pointing out other countries had such institutions under the auspices of their communication ministries.
In a speech for International Anti-Corruption Day last week, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agreed wiretaps must be regulated.
Denny Indrayana, his expert adviser on legal affairs, said Saturday a regulation on wiretaps was needed to prevent institutions abusing their wiretapping authority.
The government's call, however, has been greeted with incredulity and bemusement on the part of antigraft activists, who say the idea of regulating wiretaps under a government decree or regulation is simply another effort to weaken the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
The issue of wiretapping came to the fore last month when a KPK wiretap, played back publicly by the Constitutional Court, indicated a plot by a businessman, senior police officers and high-ranking prosecutors at the Attorney General's Office to frame two KPK deputies on trumped-up charges.
The two men, Chandra M. Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto, were brought up on charges of bribery, which have since been dropped following a massive public outcry and backlash against the police.
However, the businessman at the center of it all, Anggodo Widjojo, the younger brother of fugitive graft suspect Anggoro Widjojo, has not been touched.
The playback of the recording was enough reason for the government to hold off on deliberating a decree on wiretaps, said Coalition of Anticorruption Civil Society (Kompak) spokesman Thamrin Amal Gola.
"I admit that in other countries, wiretapping operations are regulated," he said.
"However, in those countries the law enforcement institutions – police and prosecutors – are nowhere near as corrupt as ours.
"They actually uphold the law. In Indonesia, however, these institutions are far more intent on bending the law. So this country still needs a 'superbody' like the KPK to maintain full authority over wiretaps."