Bills to finish in four years

JAKARTA: The new government and the House of Representatives are expected to finish deliberating bills on criminal code and criminal code procedures in the next four years, a senior official said on Friday.

Abdul Gani Abdullah, the legislation director at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, said the deliberations would last long given that the bill on criminal code consists of nearly 700 articles, and the bill on criminal code procedures over 100 articles.

"We will submit them in December. We must hurry up because we want them to be deliberated during the next government's rule," he told reporters during a press conference.

Abdul Gani said Indonesia will have to wait for many years to get the two bills revised if the House and the next government fail to approve them into laws during their five-year tenure.

The current Criminal Code is a product of the Dutch ruler.

The bill on criminal code has sparked controversies over its stipulations, which critics say have among other things, interfered in private affairs, such as casual sex and oral sex. -- JP