Talking Louder than the Walking

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo seems to be willing to leave behind many good things worthy of being cherished as his legacy, not only the massive infrastructure, but the legislation he views as policy breakthroughs.

KOMPAS/HENDRA A SETYAWAN

Screenshot when the Chairperson of the National Coordinating Committee for the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering Crimes (TPPU) who is also the Coordinating Minister for Politics, Law and Security (Menkopolhukam) Mahfud MD gave a press statement after a discussion meeting on the Asset Confiscation Bill (RUU) at the Kemenkopolhukam Office , Jakarta, Friday (14/3/2023).

On Thursday (4/5/2023), Kompas received information that the President's letter along with the draft law on illicit asset recovery were sent to the House of Representatives. The letter says the deliberation of the bill on asset recovery should be prioritized.

This bill stipulates the measures to deal with the amassing of illicit wealth. The impact of such crimes damages the national economic order and reduces the state’s capacity to improve public welfare.

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> New Chapter for the Formation of the Asset Forfeiture Law

Are the already enacted regulations not sufficient to address the issue? The latest proposed bill touches on the fact that the prevailing criminal judicial system in Indonesia has yet to regulate the procedures for tracing, blocking, confiscating and recovering assets procured through criminal acts, as contained in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).

Another thing that deserves attention are assets liable to state confiscation, including those that appear to be disproportionate to the functional income or (if any) additional income, without the ability to prove the legal origin of suspicious wealth.

With wealth illicitly procured through criminal acts, such as corruption, potentially being concealed overseas, the government, as provisioned by the bill, can turn to international cooperation in tracing, blocking, confiscating and recovering it as state assets, although the procedural measures need to be detailed further in its derivative regulations.

The goodwill to pass the bill entails a willingness to be open to input. Academics and activists may applaud the initiative but they hope the initiative will turn ratification into action. Many believe several prevailing sets of regulation can be optimized to pursue criminal proceeds. Such concerns need to be heeded.

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> Passing the Asset Confiscation Bill

In this republic, it is often the case that the volume rises during the drafting of a bill. After the ratifying gavel has been banged on law implementation, the noise dims with no evaluation or merit of the law being discussed. Therefore, when the bill on asset recovery becomes law, we hope we can hear about the legislative benefits in the first, five or 10 years to come. It is worth the wait to see whether significant amounts of state assets can be recovered.

It is also important that the government acts right away as soon as the asset recovery law is ratified. This is because it is now revealed almost every week that a government official is suspected of having wealth that is disproportionate to income. The sooner this bill is enacted, the fewer state losses may be incurred. This means an improved capacity of the state to address the welfare of the people at a time when the world economy is not faring well because of geopolitical conflict.

This article was translated by Musthofid.