EDITORIAL : THE JAKARTA POST, INDONESIA

 

 

Collegial crime, sentencing?

From the legal perspective, the Corruption Court’s verdicts against eight Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politicians issued at two separate hearings Wednesday were inconsistent and ignored the principle of equality before the law.
The politicians were each sentenced to 17 months in jail for receiving bribes to elect Miranda S. Goeltom the Central Bank (BI) senior deputy governor in 2004, despite differences in the amount of money they received and the roles they played in the crime.
The eight were the last in a batch of 30 politicians implicated in the vote-buying case.
The inconsistency was visible in court, as the politicians’ jail terms were lighter than most of the other 22 politicians who were convicted earlier, even though they were all charged under the same articles in the 2001 Anticorruption Law (Article 5, paragraphs 2 and 1) and the Criminal Code (Article 55, paragraph 1), which each carry a maximum sentence of five years.
The first hearing on Wednesday saw four PDI-P politicians — Ni Luh Mariani, Sutanto Pranoto, Suwarno and Matheos Pormes — convicted of receiving bribes amounting to Rp 350 million (US$40,700), Rp 500 million and Rp 600 million. They were also required to pay fines of Rp 50 million or else serve an extra three months in jail.
At the afternoon hearing, the judges found Panda Nababan guilty of receiving Rp 1.45 billion while Engelina Pattiasina, Muhammad Iqbal and Budiningsih accepted Rp 500 million each. The four were also required to pay fines of Rp 50 million or serve an extra three months.
The case was made public after fellow PDI-P politician Agus Condro Prayitno confessed to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in 2008. His confession led to the prosecution of the 30 politicians: 15 from the PDI-P, 11 from the Golkar Party, three from the United Development Party (PPP) and one from the military/police faction at the House of Representatives in 2004.
Whatever the legal arguments they provided, the judges have in fact treated the criminal cases differently.
Whether intentional or not, the judges issued jail sentences based on the defendants’ political party affiliations, aside from the different amounts of money they each had received.
Agus, for example, was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment last week, a punishment he said was too severe given his role as the whistleblower.
Hamka Yandhu from Golkar was sentenced to two and a half years in 2010, Dudhie Makmun Murod of the PDI-P and Udju Djuhaeri of the military/police faction were sentenced to two years and Endin Soefihara from the PPP got 15 months.
Paskah Suzetta, the former national development planning minister, and his nine fellow Golkar politicians were sentenced to 16 months for the same crime.
So inconsistent and unfair were the judges’ rulings in the case that they only extend the list of controversial verdicts issued by Indonesian courts.
Therefore it comes as no surprise that the general public, and justice seekers in particular, have their doubts about the country’s judicial system.
Distrust is a fair punishment if the courts, through judges as the last bastion for those seeking justice, fail to perform their noble duty.