Editorial: Not All Sugar is Sweet, Not All Courts Serve Justice

Thomas Trikasih Lembong must appeal his flawed and baseless 4.5-year prison sentence, and those with conscience must unite to support him. This is not merely a legal case. It is a blatant example of corrupt, politicised, and unfair due process. More than that, it reflects a broader crisis in Indonesia: the steady erosion of justice through selective prosecution, institutional decay, and the quiet criminalisation of competence.

In the courtroom, the judges themselves admitted that Tom Lembong had not enriched himself. There was no evidence of bribery, no self-serving kickbacks, no bank transfers, no phantom companies siphoning state funds. Not even a trace of personal gain. And yet, in a twist that defies legal logic, he was declared responsible for state financial losses estimated nearly IDR195 billion. Where is the corruption, one might ask, when no one gained? The loss narrative rested not on material evidence but on speculative audit projections.

The numbers didn’t trace actual financial leakage. They were retroactive calculations applied to policy decisions made nearly a decade ago. Tom Lembong was not charged with taking money but with having the wrong judgment, years after the fact.

Prosecutors clung to the controversial “rubber articles” of the Indonesian Anti-Corruption Law, allowing charges based on hypothetical loss. But a Constitutional Court ruling in 2016 had already clarified that only actual losses, not speculative ones, could support such charges. That ruling was conveniently ignored in this case. By allowing the trial to proceed under articles already deemed legally ambiguous and narrowed in scope, the court not only ignored binding precedent, it undermined the legal foundation of its own judgment. If the law is clear, why was it bent?

Adding to this legal convolution was a distorted picture of the sugar market. Prosecutors argued that Indonesia had a surplus of sugar in 2015, making imports wasteful. But several witnesses from within the Ministry of Trade contradicted that account, saying the imports were necessary to stabilise prices and ensure national supply. One trade official even clarified that the so-called surplus did not occur under Tom Lembong’s watch but in later years, under his successors. Still, the court latched onto the prosecution’s version of events, treating the surplus claim as indisputable fact, and ignored testimony presented under oath that directly challenged it.

Then there were the procedural issues, another cornerstone of the verdict. The court faulted Tom Lembong for bypassing inter-ministerial coordination, allegedly ignoring recommendations from the Ministry of Industry, and favouring private firms over state-owned enterprises for sugar import permits. But testimony showed these practices became common only under subsequent ministers, not under Tom Lembong. He had, by all accounts, followed what was then standard operating procedure. To hold him accountable for procedural irregularities that became prevalent after he left office is not just unfair. It is legally incoherent. The principle of lex temporis, that one cannot be judged by standards not in effect at the time, was trampled.

This is where the case takes on a more troubling dimension: selective prosecution. Tom Lembong was not the only trade minister to approve sugar imports. In fact, nearly every trade minister before and after him, from Enggartiasto Lukita, Agus Suparmanto to Muhammad Lutfi, issued similar permits. None have been prosecuted. No investigations, no interrogations, no courtrooms. Tom Lembong stood alone in the dock, while others with matching records walked freely. Even Mahfud MD, the former Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, publicly questioned why only Tom Lembong was charged. Several public policy scholars echoed this concern, asking why identical actions by other ministers across a decade were excluded from scrutiny.

Further irregularities emerged from the timeline of the investigation. The legal team pointed out that the probe was supposed to span 2015 to 2023, yet the charges focused only on the first year, 2015–2016, when Tom Lembong held office. What happened to the rest of the timeline? Why was the investigation scope silently narrowed to fit one man’s term? No answers were provided. The Attorney General’s Office declined to examine the continuity of sugar import policies across different administrations. Tom Lembong himself requested the court to summon his predecessors and successors, arguing that justice required comparing how the same policy was executed by others. The court refused.

What is particularly unjust is how the court dismissed mens rea, the foundational principle in criminal law that distinguishes between an innocent mistake and intentional wrongdoing. There is no evidence, direct or circumstantial, that Tom Lembong ever possessed the intent to commit a crime. On the contrary, his actions were aligned with the prevailing regulatory procedures, motivated by public service, and executed transparently. The absence of mens rea in this case makes the verdict not only flawed but dangerous.

And then there is the political context. Tom Lembong had served loyally under President Joko Widodo during his first term, championing reform and transparency. But in the years that followed, he became an outspoken critic of government excesses and eventually served as a key strategist for Anies Baswedan’s 2024 presidential campaign. Days after Prabowo Subianto took office, riding Jokowi’s support and backed by a formidable political coalition, Tom Lembong was sentenced. It felt less like coincidence and more like message-sending: to those who dissent, to technocrats who speak out, to policy professionals who dare to take principled positions. Foreign observers, civil society leaders, and even international investors raised red flags, seeing this not as law enforcement, but political retribution.

The broader implications are chilling. When policy decisions, especially those based on expert assessments and collective discussions, are criminalised years later based on shifting political winds, governance becomes paralysed. No future official, no matter how competent, would dare take initiative, knowing that hindsight could turn routine decisions into criminal liabilities. The law becomes less about justice and more about fear.

Legal scholars, civil society organisations, and economic reformers have denounced the prosecution. The audit used to calculate the supposed loss was called methodologically flawed and unfit for court. Former ministers warned of the dangerous precedent being set. Many acknowledged that even if there were procedural missteps, they merited administrative correction, not criminal conviction.

What Tom Lembong faces today is not merely a personal injustice. It is a systemic one. It reflects the corrosion of institutional checks, the manipulation of legal ambiguity, and the silencing of dissent under the cover of anti-corruption. His verdict was not a judgment against corruption. It was a verdict against discretion, independence, and integrity.