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ShareJakarta: Indonesia has amended a law covering the anti-corruption agency to make it more difficult to dismiss graft-fighters after a scandal involving law enforcers provoked a public outcry, a judge said on Wednesday.
The amendment would end the automatic dismissal of any official at the Corruption Eradication Commission facing criminal proceedings, with the aim of protecting those who might later be found to have been framed or wrongfully charged.
The anti-corruption agency has been successful in investigating and charging scores of government officials, members of parliament, business people and central bank officials, and has made many enemies among Indonesia's political and business elite as a result.
Two deputy chiefs of the KPK were dismissed recently when the police said they had allegedly taken bribes and abused their powers.
The two men denied any wrongdoing, but under existing law, the KPK had to dismiss them. In their defence they provided tape recordings to the Constitutional Court that purportedly showed police and state prosecutors plotting to frame them and even kill one of them.
Last month, the two anti-corruption officials, Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah, requested a judicial review of the law which requires the automatic removal of a KPK official once he or she becomes a defendant.
"The argument of the appellants that the article could be used as a tool for framing has a legal basis," said Judge Akil Mochtar. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, re-elected on the back of his reform credentials, has urged the police and prosecutors to drop the cases, and has promised legal reform.
Corruption and legal uncertainty are often cited by investors as deterrents to investment in Indonesia, despite its ample resources and abundant and relatively cheap labour.
