The Jakarta Post
February 5, 2002
Govt adopts secrecy in prosecutor selection
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Despite the public demands for a transparent screening process to pick
prosecutors for the ad hoc human rights trials, the Attorney General's
Office
has opted to keep the names of the appointees secret until they are inducted
on Friday.
The Attorney General's Office spokesman, Barman Zahir, confirmed on Monday
that the office had named 26 prosecutors, two of them with military
backgrounds, to prosecute crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999.
Barman said the selection had been kept from the public in a bid to avoid
polemics.
"The prosecutors will be sworn in on Friday...no names will be revealed
until
that day," he said.
Barman insisted that it was not necessary to disclose the names as it
would
only evoke a public response to their credibility and impartiality.
"Only us, the insiders, know well whether they are credible or not,"
Barman
claimed. "Moreover, is there any rule that obliges us to invite advice
from
the public?"
The appointees, some of whom are retired, will prosecute 12 cases of
rights
abuses that took place before and after the UN-sponsored East Timor popular
consultation in August 1999.
For the same reason, Supreme Court Justice Benyamin Mangkoedilaga, who
heads
the team screening the judges for the ad hoc human rights tribunal, preferred
to prevent the selection process from being open to public assessment.
Benyamin said that to let the public participate in the selection of
the
judges would only cause a delay in the whole process. The rights tribunal,
the first in Indonesia's history, has come under extreme international
scrutiny.
Human rights activists have long urged the government to make known to
the
public, the names of the candidates beforehand in a bid to allay fears
of an
engineered trial. Especially for a trial with such delicate issues and
very
high stakes.
None of the lines in Law No. 26/2000 on a Human Rights Tribunal stipulates
the involvement of the public or the House of Representatives in the
assessment of candidates for judges and prosecutors.
Article 23 of the Law states that the prosecution of gross violations
against
human rights is to be carried out by the Attorney General, who, consistent
with his or her authority, can install prosecutors comprising government
officers and/or the public for the ad hoc trial.
Line 4 of the Article specifically requires the prosecutors to be between
40
and 65 years of age, to have studied law and have experience as general
prosecutors. They must also have some knowledge and concern about human
rights issues.