Engineered Losses, Manufactured Justice: Criminal Liability of Experts in State Loss Manipulation—Why Indonesia Lags Behind the US, UK, and UAE -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

That is a dangerous fiction at the heart of Indonesia’s anti corruption regime, that numbers are neutral, the expert calculations are objective and the people who generate them are above suspicion. This fairy tale is not just naive; it is structurally enabling injustice. When “state losses” can be engineered with artificial audits, justice is a manufactured good to begin with. Now, the architects of that manipulation in Indonesia—the experts—still tend to be impervious to such scrutiny. Corruption prosecutions often rely on a false sense of simplicity: quantify the loss inflicted onto victims and then let prove your crime did occur.

But what if the quantification is polluted and distorted? In inflating, contorting or strategically fabricating “state loses” in ways that conform to prosecutorial narratives, experts are not just wrong; they are playing a part in a legal fabrication of some kind. But unlike in most other jurisdictions, Indonesia’s system has a tendency, if not refusal to criminalize such behavior. It’s no technical oversight. It is a doctrinal failure. In the US, expert witnesses cannot therefore enjoy absolute immunity when their performance crosses the threshold of fraud or intentional misrepresentation. The legal system makes an important distinction: protection for opinion does not mean protection for deception. Federal law applies as well so that experts knowingly falsify information or manipulate findings can be charged anywhere from perjury to fraud and obstruction of justice. The system is clear, expertise does not confer an entitlement to cheat. The United Kingdom goes about it with an equally uncompromising attitude. Experts owe an overwhelming duty to court, not to the party that selects them. Breach of that duty and particularly in cases involving intentional falsification are not speculative criminal liability is in fact enforceable. The integrity of the justice system is given more priority than the expert autonomy of a professional. Even the United Arab Emirates, which is frequently portrayed as a hybrid legal system, has come down the road to accountability quickly.

Experts guilty of fraudulent or disinformation reports submitted in court can be criminally prosecuted. The lesson is clear: The courtroom is not a marketplace for padded numbers, it is a theater of truth. And Indonesia, on the other hand, has had its way stuck in a paradox. On one account, expert estimates of state loss are interpreted as decisive, sometimes determinative, evidence in corruption scenarios. By contrast, the experts who provide these calculations are in effect insulating themselves from meaningful criminal investigation even where there are serious accusations of manipulation. This asymmetry is not only problematic; it is dangerous. It creates what can only be referred to as a *structural incentive for abuse*. And if the expert’s report determines the fate of the accused but has no real risk of distortion to which the expert is susceptible, then the system opens itself to manipulation. Justice now depends not on facts but on the persuasive force of orchestrated numbers. Worse at work, this process undermines the very meaning of due process.

The accused finds themselves forced to look not only at the state, but the technocratic narrative that is often seen as infallible. Going up against an expert report is an uphill struggle, because you’d confront institutional bias, deference to evidence and procedural inertia. The presumption of innocence is quietly replaced with the presumption of numerical authority. This is not rule of law. It is rule by calculation. The consequences go beyond the individual cases. So if you leave expert manipulation unchecked, it leads to crumbling of public trust in anti-corruption approaches. What is described as a combating of corruption comes to resemble an enforcement mechanism that is selective calibrated through the number of people it targets, punishes or protects. The lack of criminal liability for expert conduct is partly a product of a deeper conceptual shortcoming: the neglect of the fact that “scientific evidence” is an area needing its own system of accountability. Indonesia’s developing criminal procedure framework recognizes the increasing importance of technology and expert evidence, but fails to impose a similar standard of responsibility. The result is a system that magnifies power of experts without restraining their potential for abuse. This must change. In the first place, Indonesia must give up the appearance of expert neutrality as a shield.

Expertise is not immunity. It’s going to be critical for the law to explicitly make clear that manipulation of state loss calculations is not justifiable within ordinary parameters, it is criminal whether that would come in the form of fraud, perjury or obstruction of justice.

Second, there should be strong evidentiary support grounded in terms of standard ‘of proofs which are equivalent to *Daubert*’: that methods should be demonstrated to be reliable, data be disclosed, and that application be made accountable. An expert’s finding should not be taken as proof because of the individual offering it, but because of its elaboration. Third, institutional safeguards should be strengthened. Independent confirmation tools, statutory disclosure of background information, and cross examination protocols that properly check the credibility of expert findings are not an option, they are an obligation. Finally and most importantly there must be consequences.

If no criminal sanctions exist, all of that procedural protection is in danger of becoming symbolic. Accountability is not just some abstract principle; it is a tool of deterrence.

Indonesia stands at a crossroads. It can become dependent on a system where justice is tallied, but lacks any check, where experts hold power unchecked, where numbers can be calculated to serve outcomes. Or it can face the difficult reality: That without holding experts accountable, the struggle against corruption could become a different kind of injustice. A legal system that punishes based on false losses is not only failing: it deceives.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya Indonesia