Adisti Sukma Sawitri, Jakarta – Activists and legislators strongly oppose President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's plan to issue a decree protecting government officials from prosecution for creating "erroneous" policies.
Eva K. Sundari, a lawmaker from the House of Representatives' Commission III on legal affairs and human rights, told The Jakarta Post the move would be inconsistent with the President's much-praised antigraft drive.
"Two years ago, the President issued a decree to accelerate corruption eradication, now he wants to do something to challenge his own policy," she said.
Yudhoyono issued a decree in 2004, ordering top officials at all administrative levels to report their wealth to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), and to help it uncover graft in government.
Yudhoyono has since given permission for seven governors and 60 regents and mayors to be investigated for corruption offenses. Prosecutors throughout the country have launched investigations into 735 city councillors and 327 provincial legislators and the KPK has jailed several high-ranking officials for graft, including former Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh.
However, the government is drafting a decree to protect officials from criminal charges if their policies are judged erroneous but not illegal.
The planned decree, which was announced last month, would prevent law enforcement officers from investigating officials allegedly involved in graft cases until the Government Internal Oversight Body (APIP) conducted a review of the preliminary investigation.
Supporters of the decree have said some officials were afraid to carry out their duties because they feared their honest mistake would be prosecuted as graft.
Eva said officials' increasing fear of being reported to the KPK probably did contribute to the low spending in the regions last year. "The central bank has reported that regency and municipality administrations spent only an average of 20 percent of their budgets, but that should not be a good reason to shield them from audits or KPK probes," she said.
Meanwhile, anti-corruption activist Todung Mulya Lubis said that officials need not be afraid of prosecution if they acted honestly. "If they are afraid of being audited, they must have done something illegal," he said.
The decree would only make it more difficult for people to scrutinize the work of government officials, he said. Another activist, Ray Rangkuti, said if the government wanted to strengthen its antigraft programs, it should issue a decree to regulate its internal oversight bodies.
"Our findings in the field show that officials tend to misuse their authority by using the reporting mechanism to attack their political rivals. This is apparent by the unusually large number of cases reported by councilors and the executives," he said.
Ray said that among 136 graft cases across the regions, about 70 to 80 percent were reported by officials and councilors. He said some prosecutors and police officers in the regions used the reporting mechanism to blackmail politicians.
"If an official does not want his case to be reported he has to transfer money to the prosecutors or police," he said. "This court mafia and the administration officials are the groups that should be regulated," he said.