Cybercrime 'beyond RI law'

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Cybercrime has become an enigma for Indonesian legal experts because there simply is no law on the books which addresses cybercrimes, nor has the term cyberlaw itself even been defined, a criminal law expert testified in the first cybercrime case ever here on Wednesday.

University of Indonesia scholar, Loebby Loeqman, appeared at the Central Jakarta District Court as an expert witness during the trial of Tjandra Sugiono.

Tjandra, a former general manager of international marketing at PT Martina Berto, is being tried for allegedly registering the domain name of the company's main competitor PT Mustika Ratu.

He is charged with violating article 382 of the Criminal Code which deals with fraudulent competition. The article carries a maximum penalty of one year and four months in jail.

"There is no cyberlaw here at the moment. It is still being discussed by scholars," Loebby said, adding that a formal discussion will be held next January.

According to Loebby, who was also a defense witness, Indonesian courts are only able to utilize regulations of the domain name administration, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Number (ICANN), if the country has ratified it.

"Until a cyberlaw is established, should there be a case related to the cyber world, it should be regarded as a civilian case," he argued.

Last week, PT Mustika Ratu presented another expert witness, Murgiana Haq, who told the hearing that ICANN regulations could be stipulated in any country around the world. According to the regulations, cybercrime could be brought before the civilian or criminal courts.

Murgiana is the President of the Singapore-based Asean Intellectual Property Association.

The trial will resume on Thursday.