Act No. 30 of 2002 on Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) needs to be revised and adapted to the present development of criminal law and it has to respond to future legal developments. Through this revision, it is expected that later on all corruption cases will be handled by the KPK. As a result, KPK should become a permanent institution in Indonesia. "If it’s present all over Indonesia, the system will have the authority, clarity and solidity in carrying out its duty," said a member of House of Representatives, Fahri Hamzah, in Interactive Dialogue Should the Corruption Eradication Commission Act Be Revised? in Faculty of Law, Monday (9/5).
Fahri hopes that with the revision, KPK will have a superior mindset because it is protected by law. With the protection, the KPK will not have the burden to compete with other law enforcement agencies, such as prosecutors or police. "Leaders and members of the KPK must have a superior mindset because the Commission is protected under the law," he said.
Meanwhile, head of the ASEAN Caucus on Anti-Corruption, Dr. Todung Mulya Lubis, S.H, LL.M., hopes that the revision of the KPK act should be guarded all the time because there is possibility of third party presence who actually wants to undermine the KPK. Todung sees that all this time there is strong effort to weakening the performance of the KPK. He takes the case of the KPK commissioner criminalization, rivalry among law enforcement agencies, and the weakening of corruption judicial as examples. "One of the reasons of why the KPK performance and assignment are not effective is because of the ambivalence among prosecutors or police duties," Todung said.
Todung also reminded that in addition to law enforcement issues, duty and functions of prevention, coordination, and supervision should not be abandoned, especially that the Indonesian Corruption Perceptions Index is still at 2.8 point. "Well, if our Corruption Perceptions Index reaches to 5, for example, we might just have to return the job to the prosecutor again," Todung explained.
An observer from the Faculty of Economics and Business who focuses on research on corruption, Rimawan Pradiptyo, Ph.D., said the eradication of corruption cannot be given to only one institution, but also other institutions. Rimawan argues that the benefit-cost of KPK is low. This is because the cost of corruption is calculated only on the basis of explicit cost of corruption, not taking the social cost of corruption (explicit and implicit costs of corruption) into account. "Corruptors cannot be punished more heavily than the intensity of the punishment stipulated in the Anti-Corruption Act. In addition, the prosecution and court decision on fines and replacement costs have nothing to do with the amount of money that has been corrupted,” Rimawan said.
With the Economic Evaluation methods, Rimawan also conveys the data of Indonesia’s explicit corruption costs level which reached 73.07 trillion rupiah, nevertheless the total value of the financial penalty was only 5.32 trillion rupiah. Thus, the remaining 67.75 trillion losses eventually will only burden the society, especially the taxpayers. "College students who buy cell phone vouchers, housewives who buy instant noodles become taxable, thus burdened to bear it," he said.
Rimawan said that if the KPK Act will be revised, the House of Representative role is crucial. He questioned the ability of members of House of Representative in drafting the Act, especially if you see the majority of Acts in Indonesia is initially filed by the executive. If the law is not rational and creating a system of subsidy to the corruptor, the main fault lies in the legislator or the House of Representatives, which approves the draft into the Act. "The House of Representative should not only just criticize, but also show the ability to make a good and beneficial Act for the sake of the people," Rimawan criticizes.