Ina Parlina, Jakarta – The Attorney General's Office (AGO) says there is nothing wrong with their monitoring system and that the recent extortion case involving a Tangerang prosecutor was not an indication of a lack of supervision.
Prosecutor Dwi Seno Wijanarko was recently arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for allegedly extorting a bank employee. He was caught red-handed receiving in the evening.
Junior attorney general for internal monitoring Marwan Effendy said Tuesday that an internal monitoring team investigating Seno's supervisors found no negligence.
"In fact, we found that they always monitor their subordinates, including regularly having briefings," Marwan told The Jakarta Post. "But, it is hard to monitor subordinates outside the office." He said it was impossible to expect prosecutors to monitor their subordinates 24 hours a day seven days a week.
Attorney General Basrief Arief denied that his office failed to monitor its prosecutors, saying "watching 24,000 employees is not easy."
Marwan said, "Such responsibility, which is embedded within each prosecutor having subordinates, is at the forefront in preventing any violations of duty in the AGO."
He said that if there were violations his office forwarded the case to internal investigators to look for any violations of the code of ethics as well as possible crimes.
"If we find ethical violations we will impose sanctions against the perpetrator," said Marwan, who leads the internal monitoring unit himself. "And, if we find any criminal acts, we will hand the case over to the police."
As for special crimes like corruption, he said his unit would hand cases over to another AGO internal unit, the special crimes unit, to investigate. "It does not have to be handed over to the KPK. We can probe corruption on our own."
Up to October 2010, Marwan's unit had imposed 191 disciplinary sanctions on prosecutors of all levels. One hundred and two prosecutors were found guilty of abusing their power, 78 prosecutors of ethical violations and 11 prosecutors of being undisciplined.
Marwan added his unit had recently postponed promotion for a year for three prosecutors – Fachrizal, Immanuel Rudy Pailang and Henny Harjaningtyas – in a graft case involving former tax official Bahasyim Assifie.
Prosecutors have been perceived by the public as less than transparent and lacking accountability. Two public surveys on corruption showed that the AGO and prosecutors' offices were among the state institutions that ranked lowest in the public perception of corruption eradication efforts.
According to an Indonesian Survey Institute report in November 2010, prosecutors' offices were among three institutions, together with the police and the courts, which had a poor reputation.
The survey, which was conducted between Oct. 10 and 20 had 1,824 respondents across Indonesia, and concluded that prosecutors, courts and police had failed to prevent their officers from committing corruption and bowing to political and business pressure.
A similar poll by Transparency International Indonesia surveyed business people in cities across Indonesia and found that they perceived that prosecutors' offices were a main concern regarding corruption.
Basrief challenged those results, saying the survey's were based solely on people's assumptions. "They gathered information based on opinions. Nothing has been proven," he said.
Hasril Hertanto from the Indonesian Judiciary Observers said the AGO was making excuses to preserve its reputation. "If it's an embedded responsibility, then they have to carry it out without complaining."