Peak of the House Pathology
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The Inquiry Committee against the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in the House of Representatives (DPR) has set a very bad precedent in the history of our political behavior. We raise this issue not because the right to this inquiry will certainly have an impact on the setbacks of the KPK, but because it has spread various motives and inappropriate behavior in the state. It displays the disgraceful acts of the DPR rather than bad things in the KPK.
We ought to be concerned because the exhibition of inappropriate things in the mass media has been practiced everyday over the last several months by legislators, who according to the universal rules, should be standard bearers in political behavior.
According to the rules of Aristotle, legislators, as the stakeholders of ethos of virtues and statesmanship, should be wisely competent. Here politics means an arena for the actualization of virtues and statesmanship so that it becomes an integral part within the ethos of society and state.
Being at the farthest point of the reverse of a set of ideal political characteristics, it is difficult for us not to state that some legislators, with the silence and complicity of the majority of their colleagues, have brought the DPR to step to the top of their political pathology. The inquiry committee has piled up with various negativities. Marked by, first, myopia, amnesia, shortness of breath, an escapist nature, an absence of honesty and sincerity, and chaos in political reason; the special committee brightly violates rationality or political historical logic.
Secondly, the special committee, in its efforts to undermine the KPK, from the outset violated political rationality (which overlaps with legal rationality), which is vulgar and repeatedly justifies the means. Thirdly, because of the misuse of the right to an inquiry, the special committee has the potential to undermine the weight and credibility of opportunities to implement a truly credible inquiry by the DPR in the future, thereby further degrading the quality of democracy.
The KPK was established based on laws, and each legislation is the product of political dialectics or the cause and effect cycle of a political phenomenon. We know our country has inherited massive and chronic corruption throughout the 32-year New Order. Explanation of Law No. 30 of 2002 on the KPK states corruption practices have not only spread to "all aspects of people\'s lives," but are also increasing in number and their "systematical" nature to the point that they have become extraordinary crimes. In the explanation, the emergency condition can clearly be read.
Therefore, it was correct and blessed to see the government\'s response in 2002 to move to resolve the emergency situation by ensuring the application of the "extraordinary law enforcement method" through a special agency having widespread, independent authority which is free from any power…."
Myopic
To overcome the extraordinary nature of corruption that has entered all aspects of people\'s lives, it also "needs an extraordinary law enforcement method" and "its implementation is carried out optimally, intensively, effectively, professionally and continuously." We need to emphasize two key words to mark the nature of the KPK, namely the word "extraordinary" and the word "continuous", because despite the two raisons d’être of the KPK, the exponents of the special committee myopically and like an amnesiac, insist on closing their eyes or shifting them from the public awareness. From there the special committee, over the last several months, has continued to demonstrate myopia, amnesia, shortness of breath, escapist characteristics, while at the same time a fallacy of political understanding.
It is widely understood that in the country, the extraordinary crime of corruption is not at all diminishing, and it is even increasing despite the KPK having worked optimally for years since it was established. Based on that fact, the special committee and other House elements tend to implicitly conclude that the KPK is redundant or incompetent, and a number of them have even explicitly advocated its dissolution, even long before the formation of the special committee.
Three important facts as the base of the increasingly widespread corruption have been intentionally ignored here. First are the party system practices, general elections and our representation. Secondly, there is a tendency for collusion among our government branches with the support of political party circles and businessmen who have been hit by the actions of the KPK. Thirdly, a bad stimulus on the criminalization standard by other judiciary institutions against the KPK leadership whenever figures or their interests are targeted by the KPK. Similarly there are loopholes in our judiciary system and practice, and no deterrent effect from verdicts against large-scale corruption perpetrators.
However, above all is the disclaimer against the historical logic truth about the establishment of the KPK. If in 2002 we had agreed to accept the historical logic truth, namely to face an extraordinary crime that extends to "all aspects of people\'s lives" and also admitted that the intensity and prevalence of the extraordinary crime further strengthen its extraordinary nature, then the sane response should have been to further strengthen the extraordinary nature, independency and continuity of the KPK by, among other things, blocking any negative factor or intervention, both from inside and outside, which hinders the optimization of the KPK’s performance.
Recommending, let alone imposing, the opposite policy, namely to disqualify the authority of the KPK or to correct it improperly, even to disband it, can only mean the imposition of the pile of negativity mentioned above: myopia, amnesia, shortness of breath, escapist nature, the absence of honesty and sincerity, and chaos in political understanding. All these practices of negativity originate from the absence of fairness to accept the historical raison d’être of the KPK. This is a betrayal of the reform imperative.
The DPR’s right to an inquiry is political provision in the checks and balances principle, which is inseparable from the separation powers tips in democracy. The mutual control principles require that all processes applicable in the special committee\'s work have to fulfill the principles of substantive validity and procedural validity in order to ultimately lead to political legitimacy. All these political demands tend to be ignored by the basis of the special committee on the minimalistic legal-formal aspects or the forced ones. Here Habermas\' recommendation about the ideal speech situation is dismissed.
Violating substantive validity
The special committee violates the substantive validity demand on at least three counts. First, the KPK is not at the same level as the DPR. In democratic rationality, the checks and balances principle should be carried out across state institutions whose powers and authorities are at the same level, because beyond the dictum of equality, it is no longer checks and balances, but has become an intervention of arbitrary coercion. Therefore, if the DPR really wants to develop the KPK, it can simply invite the commission in regular hearings to Commission III of the DPR.
Secondly, it hinders the performance and interferes with the operation of a state institution, an extra subsidiary agency in law enforcement whose law gives a mandate and extraordinary independence due to coercive conditions. Thirdly, it wants to handle the implementation of clean governance, whereas from the start of the reformation, the DPR itself is widely believed to be an epicenter of corruption. In other words, the inquiry special committee does not have a moral right to take part in the eradication of corruption.
We have also known how the special committee repeatedly violated the demand for procedural validity. The proposal for the passing of the committee was accepted at a plenary session in a criminal way. It was presided over by
Agun Gunandjar Sudarsa, who has also been targeted by the KPK in the e-ID corruption case. He worked without the provision of materials for the objectives and the reason for the initial investigation, so that his work widened everywhere reactively, superficially and improvisatorially. He also deliberately utilized various input from sources or institutions that are not credible or not in a credible position to review or align the KPK. The most repulsive, the special committee even deliberately and formally interviewed large-scale corruption perpetrators whose punishment is already in force. This is very wild behavior without precedent, which should not necessarily happen in any civilized country.
Behind all the special committee\'s work there is a bad motive and naked falsehood. As is known, it is very difficult to avoid the impression that the special committee is the manifestation of bewilderment of the House circles, especially its speaker, who has been the main target, in the alleged e-ID corruption case. The naked fraud is staged almost daily in various media, whenever the exponents of the special committee declare that they simply want to strengthen the KPK.
Also when they seek input from institutions which de facto refuse the inevitability of the historical logic and demands of the extraordinary nature from the existence of the KPK. If the special committee is sincere about strengthening the KPK, it should not be chaired by someone who is also a corruption "suspect." It must be fully manned by figures with commendable track records.
The inquiry special committee will possibly pass without bruising the KPK. But the real result is the exposure of the unfounded right of inquiry and all its following stories which have only exposed the bad qualities and behavior of the DPR members themselves. While the possibility to curb the KPK seems to be increasingly small, it has spread a series of bad characteristics and behavior in managing the state. It has damaged public civility and further embarrassed the dignity of the DPR itself.
The legislators reject the principles of virtue and statesmanship and make both increasingly difficult to be embedded as ethos. No less important, the poor reputation of this special committee will create a burden of incredibility for a long time on the inquiry rights of the DPR, which might have become increasingly credible in the future. This is the natural reward from the wanton abuse of power.
Despite the black portrait from the peak of the House pathology, figures of virtue certainly still exist, survive, and continue to blossom in society and amid the high-level institutions of our state, including in the DPR itself. From there let the imagination stay alive, the hope of determining that when the time comes, no matter in which decade, our nation-state will witness a House of Representatives which carries out its duties commendably on the grounds of what Michael Sandel called moral desert and become a standard bearer from the spreaders of virtue and statesmanship.
MOCHTAR PABOTTINGI
Research Professor of LIPI 2000-2010
