Heru Andriyanto, Jakarta – Just weeks ahead of its first anniversary, the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force is facing mounting calls for disbandment amid criticism that it has done nothing more than "hold press conferences" and protect the interests of the ruling coalition.
"The thing it knows how to do best is hold press conferences," said Haris Rusli from Petisi 28, a group of legal activists from various backgrounds, but all critical of the government.
Petisi 28 lodged an unsuccessful motion asking the Supreme Court to disband the task force but recently, several politicians also jumped on the bandwagon.
The United Development Party (PPP) has officially requested the task force be disbanded because "it focuses merely on image building, while law-enforcement tasks require concrete actions," the party said late last month.
Eleven months since its establishment, how much has the six-member task force to rub out the so-called judicial mafia – a term referring to case brokers who have effectively choked the country's legal system – actually accomplished?
Weak force?
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued the presidential decree forming the task force on Dec. 30, 2009, shortly after he declared war on the judicial mafia when he assumed office for the second time in October last year.
The task force is chaired by Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, who previously headed the government's post-tsunami relief coordinating body in Aceh. Other members are presidential adviser for legal affairs Denny Indrayana, Deputy Attorney General Darmono, high-ranking police official Insp. Gen. Herman Effendi, environmental law expert Mas Achmad Santosa and Yunus Hussein, chairman of the Financial Transactions Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).
Unlike police and prosecutors, however, the task force is not authorized to take concrete action. It is limited to giving recommendations to the president on how to proceed with reforms in the institutions in question.
And therein lies its weakness, Haris said. Because the task force is an ad hoc body by nature and was established by a presidential decree, it is not powerful enough to serve as a watchdog over agencies like the police and the attorney general's office that are more firmly grounded.
"The task force works without a clear pattern," added Romahurmuzy, secretary of the PPP faction in the House of Representatives. "With the police, the AGO and the KPK having new chiefs, it's time to disband the task force."
Little action
This is why, according to Haris, all the task force has been able to do is make headlines, but there aren't many concrete deeds.
The task force made grabbed the media spotlight this year when it paid unscheduled visits to prisons and found how high-profile convicts like Arthalyna Suryani, who is serving four and a half years for bribing a prosecutor, could live remarkably luxurious lives in cells furnished with all amenities.
But after the blazing media coverage of the prison inspection, the task force members were unable to prevent the leisure Bali trip of another high-profile detainee, Gayus Tambunan, who has been held since they helped facilitate the return from Singapore, where he had fled to evade graft charges.
Although the Gayus case has now evolved into a major scandal with police officers, lawyers, a judge and even a prosecutor either named a suspect or already jailed, observers say it failed to provide momentum to uncover the so-called judiciary mafia in courts, the National Police and the AGO.
No further action has been taken against major companies who allegedly evaded taxes by bribing Gayus.
Cherry-picking?
Haris also accused the task force of favoritism: criticizing scandals outside the State Palace but turning a deaf ear to government-linked cases such as the Bank Century bailout scandal. "It has largely served to mask the hypocrisy in law enforcement – as if the government was seriously combating crime," he said.
Lawmakers in the House's legal affairs commission have criticized the task force for not carrying out its responsibilities.
Trimedya Panjaitan from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and Bambang Soesatyo from the Golkar Party have said the task force should be dissolved immediately because its members have been too busy exploiting the Gayus case and because it had become more of a liability than an asset to law enforcement.
"When a task force serves mainly as a stage for its members to gain personal fame, it should be disbanded immediately because that's not the goal of its establishment," Bambang said.
Golkar was also displeased by task force reports of alleged involvement in the Gayus scandal of companies belonging to the party's chairman Aburizal Bakrie.
Gayus has repeatedly claimed that he received massive amounts of money from Bakrie Group companies, including Bumi Resources, and he is alleged to have met with Aburizal during his controversial Bali trip. The task force denied it was behind the allegation.
'We're still needed'
Task force member Darmono, who is also a deputy attorney general, dismissed opinions that the task force was ineffective, saying on Friday that its existence is needed to assist the nation's law-enforcement agencies.
Another task force member, Mas Achmad Santosa, said he preferred to ignore the criticism as long as his team continues its work for "a good cause."
"We don't need to respond, because we need to keep moving forward," he said. "We work for a good cause and we never intervene in the legal proceedings. The bottom line is we have to uncover the judicial and tax mafia."