Suherdjoko and Dicky Christanto, Semarang, Jakarta – Experts on Sunday called for the Attorney General's Office (AGO) to build a stricter internal monitoring system following its plan to trim 3,000 positions within the organization as part of an internal reform program.
These experts argued the internal reforms would be meaningless if the AGO did not manage to initiate stricter internal monitoring that would allow the AGO to mete out stronger sanctions on prosecutors who had violated regulations.
"Organizing and setting up a new internal monitoring system is much more important that trimming 3,000 positions within the AGO as it would allow the AGO to follow through on disciplining its staff," Saldi Istra, a constitutional law expert from Andalas University in Padang, West Sumatra, told The Jakarta Post via telephone Sunday.
"Since the AGO has vowed to conduct internal reforms, it should also reinforce the reforms with stricter internal monitoring."
Attorney General Hendarman Supandji had said over the weekend that he had planned to cut 3,000 positions in the AGO in response to the public need for better law enforcement.
He added that all divisions within the AGO, including the special crimes, general crimes, internal career development and intelligence divisions, would see a reduction in headcount.
"We will propose the draft of new regulations to the President early in January. It will probably take three to four months for the President to sign the draft, after which we will move fast," Hendarman said while attending an alumni congress at Diponegoro University in Semarang, Central Java, on Saturday. "We will modify procedures to streamline our system," he added.
When asked whether he faced resistance over his plans to reform the corruption-ridden institution, Hendarman said so far there wasn't any from within the organization. "Everybody at the AGO has already acknowledged that internal reforms are necessary. I have faced no resistance so far," he said.
He denied widespread speculation that institutional reforms were being pushed through following public scrutiny of the AGO in relations to several cases involving public prosecutors in the past.
"(Reforming the institution) has been one of my passions. These reforms aren't a reaction to previous cases," Hendarman said. "However, I do acknowledge that those cases have encouraged and enabled us to fast-track the program," he added.
Many antigraft activists have said that the involvement of several prosecutors in graft cases obviously indicated that the AGO was in desperate need of stricter monitoring.
Danang Widoyoko of Indonesia Corruption Watch had previously commented that one of the problems that needed to be addressed immediately within the AGO was its internal monitoring system.
He added that the current system had failed to impose strong sanctions on prosecutors who had clearly violated regulations.
"We have seen that the AGO has failed to deter prosecutors who have violated regulations," he told the Post recently. "Officials at the AGO need to take urgent steps to address this problem, or we run the risk of seeing the same story repeat itself over and over again."
The most prominent cases cited by critics of the AGO include a bribery scandal involving senior prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan, and the AGO's alleged role in colluding with the National Police and a businessman to frame two Corruption Eradication Commission deputy chairmen.