21st December 2013
Bachelard
For Schapelle Corby the diplomatic spat that has pitted Indonesia against Australia could not have come at a worse time.
The Australian drug convict, dubbed “Ganja Queen” by the Indonesian media after her arrest and imprisonment in 2004, is awaiting a decision from the Indonesian political system on whether she can be released on parole.
With their parole application in August this year, Corby and her family entered a bureaucratic labyrinth.
The revelation of the 2009 phone tapping by Australia against Indonesia's ruling clique has only made it worse. Some MPs in Indonesia's governing coalition are even calling for Corby's parole to be rejected entirely.
But after months of frustration, as the year closes, there are some signs that her long-awaited parole may be just around the corner.
Since Corby's arrest for smuggling 4.2 kilograms of marijuana in her boogie board bag, her case has been a hobby horse for politicians and anti-drug groups in Indonesia keen to strike blows against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's allegedly pro-Australian bias.
In May 2012, when the President granted Corby clemency in the form of a five-year cut to her 20-year sentence, he became the target of furious opposition. The chief justice of the constitutional court, Mahfud MD, said the country deserved an explanation.
But by the time Corby finally made her parole application in August, that outcry had died down.
There was no political backlash as details emerged of the conditions she must fulfil: to live with sister Mercedes and brother-in-law Wayan Widiartha in Bali, to work in his surf shop designing bikinis, and to stay until March 2018.
This last fact pointed to her desperation to be out of Kerobokan prison, because taking parole adds to her time outside Australia – it makes her ineligible to gain further sentence cuts for good behaviour, and requires her to serve 12 months extra for “guidance”.
On September 10 her family paid the 100 million rupiah financial penalty imposed as part of her sentence and passed the case to Indonesia's bureaucrats for a decision.
At first, all went smoothly. On October 10, the Bali prisons department confirmed that Corby had fulfilled all the requirements. It sent the paperwork to Jakarta.
In Kerobokan, the news lifted Corby's spirits. Guards reported that she was spending more time outside her cell, socialising with other prisoners.
And then nothing.
For weeks the corrections office in Jakarta denied it had received the paperwork.
When it did, on October 29, a spokesman used words that strike fear in the heart of anyone familiar with Indonesian bureaucracy: “It does not follow the existing regulations.”
Part of Corby's application was a letter from the Australian consulate in Bali eight months earlier, guaranteeing her good behaviour. It was printed on a form provided by Kerobokan prison but officials in Jakarta demanded it be reprinted, this time on letterhead.
The Australian embassy requested exact instructions. But between October 29 and December 13, the embassy could get no clear guidance.
Meanwhile a Mexican stand-off developed between the corrections office and the immigration office – both parts of the same overarching Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights – over the immigration status of a foreign parolee.
On November 18 the spying revelations dropped, as did the temperature involving all dealings between Australia and Indonesia.
Law and Justice Minister Amir Syamsuddin, who will ultimately approve or reject Corby's parole application, agreed that there might be a political cost for granting parole, but has insisted repeatedly that her case will be decided according to the law, not politics.
Others, though, are not such sticklers.
“I think the government should consider the spying allegations," said Aziz Syamsuddin, the deputy head of the Indonesian parliament's Commission III, which covers legal affairs. “Perhaps it might even be possible to cancel the presidential clemency.”
In this climate, it may seem that Corby should abandon all hope, but from mid-December her case showed signs of renewed life.
In Bali, prison governor Farid Junaedi announced he was recommending her for a two-month sentence reduction for good behaviour. In Jakarta, a corrections spokesman confirmed that his department was now discussing the matter with counterparts in immigration.
And Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it had received instructions on December 13 and would send an amended letter, on letterhead, “in coming days”.
The next step is a ministerial signature. This allows for one more political intervention, one more chance for Indonesia's opponents of Corby to campaign against her parole.
Inside Kerobokan prison, sources say that the prisoner's good mood of September and October has soured from waiting.
“She stays in her cell almost all the time,” says one. “She doesn't socialise much … she's back to her usual self.”
