Monday, January 5, 2009

Public courts to combat graft toothless, monitoring say

Jakarta : Anti-corruption groups have criticized the court to public corruption suspects to exercise their "paradise" as the most graft suspects tried by the lowest to the highest courts of this year have been released.

During 2008, there were at least 194 cases of corruption handled by the district, high and supreme courts, involving 444 suspects, but 277, or 67 percent, were acquitted of all charges. Only 167 were convicted, according to Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW).

ICW said that the 167 detainees, 78 were sentenced to one year in prison and 22 were imprisoned between one and two years.

Eighteen suspects were sent to prison for two to five years, five were sentenced to prison terms between five and 10 years, and received more than 10 years' imprisonment, while 10 others received suspended prison sentence.

"Less than one year in prison will not deter corruption, not to mention suspended prison sentence," ICW coordinator and one Yuntho lawsuit to monitor Emerson said at the end of the year conference Sunday.

He said this was contrary to the cases handled by the Court of corruption.

"In 2008 there were 27 cases with 31 defendants tried by the Court of corruption and each were found guilty," he said.

Emerson said there are several reasons behind the high number of suspects released by the court.

The first is that the suspects were actually found not guilty. The second is that the existing indictments of prosecutors were weak or weakened in the goal. And the third is that the judges deliberately tried considerations that are eligible for the suspects.

"The last two reasons dominated their rulings for the release of the suspect," he said.

For example, Emerson cited a case of corruption involving former Patina Central Java Legislative Council speaker Wiwik Budi Santoso and his deputy Syarif Mundi, who were accused of abuse of Rp 2.6 billion (U.S. $ 234,911) from their budget of the city in 2004.

"They were all released as they came back the funds to the state, so the judges ruled there was no state loses the case," says Emerson.

Such a review, he argues, is contrary to Article 5, 1999, against the corruption law, which strictly stipulates that the State Restitution does not lose to reject someone with criminal consequences.

Director of the Center for Anti-Corruption Studies (Pukat) at Gajah Mada University, Zainal Arifin Mochtar, share similar views, saying there was a significant difference between the rulings of the Court and the corruption in the courts.

"We have carried out a study in 2008 comparing with the performance of these two tribunals and we found that most cases handled by public courts convicted only sentenced to one year in prison, while the Court mainly corruption suspects imprisoned for at least five years, "he told the Jakarta Post.

He said that there are only two reasons for the difference in performance between the two courts - a lack of political will and lack of capacity.

"These two reasons in public court order to enforce the law," said Zaenal.

He said that the failure element could still be solved by training to improve the capacity of law enforcement.

"This is the aspect of political will that is most important because it comes to many factors: money, the judiciary and the mafia," he added.

Both the CIF and Pukat urged the government and the House of Representatives to approve a draft law on Corruption Court to strengthen the existence of corruption courts.

"The main reason for corruption Court was created because we can no longer rely on public courts," said Zainal.

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