Defendants need more protection

JAKARTA (JP): The rights of some defendants on trial here have been violated because key witnesses have been absent, according to the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation's chairman.

Chairman Bambang Widjojanto said over the weekend the Criminal Code stipulated that defendants had the right to be represented by defense lawyers and have key witnesses testify.

"But nowadays, the defendants' rights, such as an expert witness in Robot Gedek's pedophile trial, were neglected without good reasons from judges," he said.

He said this happened again and again because there was no sanction board, which "could serve as a control when defendants' rights were violated".

Bambang cited the process of dossier preparations at police stations as an example of rights violations. If a defendant's rights were violated because he or she had not been interrogated properly or if he or she had been forced to admit a crime, the dossier should be dropped or declared invalid.

"Moreover law enforcers, including judges, prosecutors and police, should be punished or given sanctions if they are found guilty of violating a defendant's rights," he said.

Bambang said the board should examine several cases.

"This means the board would evaluate the verdict of each case."

Bambang said examinations could be lengthy and there were many cases to deal with.

"Moreover, the examination process also requires good quality law enforcers. They would have to be able to analyze each case impartially," he said.

He said this would be hard to implement. (12)