Abe Silangit & Camelia Pasandaran – The graft eradication fight in Indonesia may be weakened by the hesitancy of the House of Representatives to pass the Anti-Corruption Court Bill in time, a watchdog said on Friday.
Illian Deta Artasari, law and political coordinator at Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), said that lawmakers are not serious about passing the bill and have given unreasonable excuses to delay it.
These half-hearted moves by the House may threaten the the effort to eradicate corruption, she said.
Lili Romli, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), also recently criticized the House for having no serious commitment to eradicate corruption.
"House members should have passed the bill on time, and if possible in this term," he said in a discussion conducted by the Constitutional Court.
"Delaying the passage of the bill only shows that they don't care about eradicating corruption."
The Constitutional Court ruled that the new Anti-Corruption Court Bill should be passed by December 2009 at the latest.
Commenting on the criticism, Dewi Asmara, a member of the House's special committee on the bill, said on Friday that if the House could not meet the deadline, corruption cases may be handled by the state court.
Illian said that the plan to temporarily return corruption cases to the state court is against the spirit of fighting graft.
"According to research conducted by Transparency International Indonesia, the state court is one of the most corrupt institutions in Indonesia," Illian said. "How they are going to handle corruption cases?"
Dewi said that the bad reputation of some state court judges should not taint the whole institution.
"We can intensify the supervision of the judges," she said.
Mahfud MD, the chief of the Constitutional Court, recently said that limited time should not be the reason for the House to delay passing the bill.
"If lawmakers work seriously, they can pass it in a few days only," Mahfud said. "It is simple actually."
Mahfud said that if the House members could not finish it on time, the government could issue a regulation in lieu of law, or Perppu.
"The president could release a Perppu on the bill before the current presidential term is over this coming October," he said. "With a Perppu, the bill could be passed directly in the next House term."
Dewi said that there is no need for the government to issue a Perppu.
"There is no law absentia nor urgent condition that requires the government to issue a Perppu," she said.
Illian said that the House's low commitment to passing the bill and its rejection of the idea of a Perppu is further proof that the House has no desire to combat corruption.