Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta – Several government officials convicted of graft remain free despite their jail sentences, raising concerns that they could evade justice by traveling overseas.
Poor bureaucracy and powerless law enforcers are to blame for this unflattering condition. At least three regional leaders who have been convicted of corruption still currently walk free.
One of the three convicts is suspended Bekasi Mayor Mochtar Mohammad, who earlier this month was sentenced to six years in prison by the Supreme Court.
The court overturned Mochtar's acquittal, which was granted by the Bandung Corruption Court, and found the senior Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician guilty in several cases of corruption that had caused more than Rp 5.5 billion (US$605,000) in state losses.
Despite the Supreme Court's final and binding ruling, Mochtar refused to go to jail, claiming that he was innocent until he formally received official information from the Supreme Court.
Mochtar's lawyer, Sugeng Teguh Santosa, said the notification he had received from the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) prosecutors was not enough. "My client won't go anywhere without having the official copy of the court's ruling," he said.
Other graft convicts, suspended Subang Regent Eep Hidayat and Bengkulu Governor Agusrin Najamuddin, used the same pretext and remain free. Jail sentences for the two officials were upheld by the Supreme Court in February and January.
Eep was sentenced to five years' imprisonment while Agusrin, also a Democratic Party member, received four years. The two were found guilty of embezzling money from taxes.
For these two convicts, it was not only their lawyers who refused to acknowledge the Supreme Court rulings. Prosecutors, who under the law are authorized and tasked to execute the jail sentences, claimed that they had not received official notifications from the court yet.
Gadjah Mada University's Anticorruption Studies Center director Zainal Arifin Mochtar said state prosecutors could not use such excuses. "It is not logical to say that the individuals have not been officially informed about the verdicts on their convictions because the trials are open to the public," he said on Saturday.
Zainal, however, acknowledged that there are procedural loopholes that have given the leeway for prosecutors not to forcefully send convicts to jail immediately after a final ruling is issued by judges.
The Criminal Code Procedures (KUHAP), for example, clearly stipulates that the prosecutors can only implement punishment by showing the official copy of the ruling to the convicts. There are precedents in which convicts and prosecutor's offices colluded to arrange a delay in the delivery of copies of their verdict.
"It is time to revise such weak procedures. In the future, prosecutors and defendants must be required to attend the Supreme Court hearings so any sentences can be executed as soon as the presiding justice bangs his gavel," Zainal said.
Unlike in hearings at district courts, it is not obligatory for defendants and prosecutors to attend trials at high courts and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, the highest court of law in the country, is supposed to have an open session.
However, for years, the court has never published its hearing schedules. It has been a long tradition that Supreme Court justices carry out hearings without the knowledge of the people outside the court.
The public, even the defendants and prosecutors, are usually informed about the court's rulings through its website, which may publish the verdicts weeks after the actual time of the verdict hearing.
Former Constitutional Court chief justice Jimly Asshiddiqie called on the Supreme Court to hold hearings transparently. "It is important to tackle any form of mistreatment of verdicts, for the sake of the court's accountability," he said.