Former Chief of Constitutional Court, Mahfud MD, expected the Indonesian community and government would not lose hope on anti-corruption issues. He hoped the country to have a firm leader related to corruption eradication.
"It needs a leader with integrity, one who is courageous and honest,” said Mahfud MD in UC UGM on Friday (8/12) in a National Seminar themed Indonesia Integrity Emergency: Response and Challenge.
Mahfud said currently many leaders from all levels had been trapped in ‘transactional’ politics that made them lose their courage and integrity to fight against corruption. In his opinion, courageous and honest leaders had to be present at all government levels. They had to convince themselves not to get trapped into transactional politics and dare to take stern action.
Mahfud said in the history of Indonesia, the country had already a stern law enactment and justice during the democracy in the 50’s.
"Although the government at that time was facing many ups and downs, but the justice was served, law enactment was stern, corrupted ministers were imprisoned, etc,” he said.
Zainal Arifin Mochtar, chairman of Centre for Anti-Corruption Studies at Faculty of Law UGM (PuKAT FH UGM), however, disagreed if the corruption in Indonesia was said as becoming a habit. According to Zaenal, the articles in the State Guidelines of UUDS 1950 became good examples for the stance of public officials to differ from those of the public. Those articles, he said, clearly made a decision related to a case of an official without having to do a judicial review, appeal, etc.
"While currently, there are many concepts instead, lawyers that defend corrupters. So, a concept and system are required and both have to go hand in hand,” he said.
The national seminar was organised by PuKAT FH UGM and event committee of 68th anniversary of UGM. Attending the seminar were Laode M. Syarif from the Anti-corruption Commission (KPK) and popular presenter, Najwa Shihab, as moderator.
Tri Mastoyo, vice-chairman of the event, said the seminar was very important because corruption issues still became the main issue affecting Indonesia. After the seminar, launching of Journal of PuKAT FH UGM was done.