By: Sandy Arief)*
For the people of Indonesia, corruption has always been considered as one of the “extraordinary crime” just like drugs-abusing crime and terrorism. Almost all the people of Indonesia agreed that corruption was one of the main causes for inhibiting the development in Indonesia. In addition, corruption is often regarded as one of the heinous crimes that harming the joints of the nation’s resilience, slowly but deadly for sure.
Seeing the enormity of the negative effects caused by the crime of corruption, it is certain that the criminal is being hated so much by the public. Associating the corruptor like a rat can be an indicator to describe how how the people hate corruption. Ironically, people often furious at the number of criminals who are given penalties too light and not commensurate with the crimes that the corruptors had done. In essence, people want the corruptor is being given the fullest extent of the law because of their “evil crime”.
It seems that the people’s hatred toward the corruption is the cause why them give a lot of criticize to the Minister of Law and Human Rights Yasonna Laoly. The criticizes are addressed to the Mr. Yasonna’s discourse who want to facilitate the granting of remission for the corruption convicts. During this time, the corruption convicts who want to get remission must first become a whistle-blower or justice collaborator with the law enforcement agencies to dismantle the larger corruption crime. This provision, according to Mr. Yasonna need to be revised. According to Mr. Yasonna, if a convicted of corruption cases have been confiscated, pays fines and penalties as well as obtaining a well-behaved, then that convicted of corruption is eligible for remission in accordance with law.
Mr. Yasonna’s discourse then got a lot of criticism and strong resistance from various circles of society. According to a member of Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), Mr. Yasonna’s discourse that want to make remissions for corruption convicts would injure the public sense of justice and the existing norms. In line with these opinions, the Deputy Chairman of KPK La Ode Sharif also confirmed that ease of remissions will be a commodity traded between certain officials with the corruptors. This, of course will make the corruption Indonesia become worse.
However, Mr. Yasonna’s discourse is not wrong. Moreover, if we think about the reasons behind this discourse, which is to manage the condition of prisons across Indonesia that almost all have overcapacity. Nevertheless, the criticism leveled by the public still need to be an evaluation for Mr. Yasonna. Discourse remissions for the convicts of corruption can be realized, as long as Mr. Yasonna can guarantee that law enforcement against criminals can be carried out as fairly as possible. In addition, Mr. Yasonna also have to show that officials within the prisons are people who are clean and have a good integrity, so it is unlikely that they will trade remissions for the corruptors. If Mr. Yasonna is successful running of these two things, the community itself will accept the idea to facilitate the granting remissions for the corruptors.
)* The author is CIDISS contributor