Lawyer claims bribe money was Lebaran bonus

JAKARTA. A leading member of the country’s bar association, who is representing a lawyer accused of bribing a Supreme Court staff member, has claimed that the alleged bribe money was actually a Lebaran bonus as the amount was too petty to be a bribe for a Supreme Court justice.

“The person who took the bribe was a Supreme Court staffer. Is it likely three justices would accept about Rp 80 million [US$7,760] in bribes? There’s no way a justice would be willing to take only Rp 20-25 million each. The money could be a [Lebaran] bonus for court officials,” Congress of Indonesian Advocates (KAI) deputy chairman Tommy Sihotang told a discussion in Jakarta on Saturday.

Tommy admitted that it was no secret that lawyers often resorted to bribery to win cases, saying that they were often “forced” to commit such wrongdoing in the midst of a corrupt judicial system. “The main problem is not the lawyers. So what if a lawyer gives money [to judges]? He is dealing with a corrupt judicial system,” he said.

He argued that it was necessary for the Supreme Court to limit the opportunities for lawyers to bribe its justices and that there should be a supervision mechanism to ensure accountability in the court’s verdicts. “The fact is no one can criticize in any way the Supreme Court rulings,” he said.

The country’s judicial system is again in the spotlight after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Thursday caught a lawyer from Hotma Sitompul’s legal practice, Mario C. Bernardo, while allegedly in the process of handing over bribe money to a Supreme Court staff identified as Djodi Supratman. They were both charged and detained on Friday.

The KPK alleges that the two men were only middlemen and that the bribery may implicate higher officials. Tommy denied on Saturday that top lawyer Hotma Sitompul had anything to do with Mario’s case. “I can assure you that Pak Hotma knew nothing about it. After all, the sum of money is just too small [for a bribe],” he said.

A recent study by judicial watchdog the Indonesian Legal Roundtable (ILR) highlighted that 60 percent of a total of 1,200 respondents nationwide believed judges were susceptible to bribery while 23 percent of respondents believed otherwise.

A 2012 report by Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) showed that at least 10 judges had allegedly received bribes from graft defendants. ICW also found a case in which the wealth of one professional judge increased by a factor of 10 in eight years, while another judge was living large, as indicated by his penchant for luxury cars and playing golf.

In an attempt to prevent judges from taking bribes, the government raised the salaries of judges late last year and those of ad hoc judges earlier this year. A lower court judge now receives around Rp 10 million in take-home pay a month and a high court judge Rp 45 million.

Lawmaker Nurdiman Munir has claimed that corruption plagues law enforcement as officials believe they are above the law even though they are aware that the Criminal Code (KUHP) imposes harsher sentences on them should they break the law.

The lawmaker, however, said that lawyers were also to blame for sustaining the endemic corruption among the judiciary and called for a revision to the 2003 Advocates Law to impose higher punishments for rogue advocates. “Under the new bill, lawyers should face five years imprisonment for hindering or tampering with investigations,” he said. (The Jakarta Post)