Experts, legislator support bill on presidential conduct

JAKARTA (JP): A political scientist, a constitutional law expert and a legislator hailed the initiative by the House of Representatives (DPR) to draft a bill which would set a code of conduct for the head of state.

Interviewed separately by The Jakarta Post last week, political researcher Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, legislator Panda Nababan and constitutional law expert Satya Arinanto shared their views on the crucial need for such a law.

"The presidential law will set the ground rules on what can be done and cannot be done by a president.

"The law on whether a president can accept gifts, in the form of land, houses, cash or in any other form, from a foreign country on a personal or a presidential level, is still unclear," Ikrar said in a recent interview.

He said currently the House can not legally act against the President.

"DPR cannot legally stop the President today since there is no such law," he said.

President Abdurrahman Wahid insists that a US$2 million donation he recently received from Sultan Hasanal Bolkiah of Brunei was a personal donation for humanitarian aid in Aceh.

Prevailing regulations state that financial aid granted by foreign countries to Indonesia must be inserted in the state budget.

Ikrar added that the presidential bill should also define the authority of the Indonesian Police when examining a criminal case involving a president.

"The National Police chief, despite being appointed by the president, should be free to conduct investigations into the case and question the president for irregular actions that disadvantaged the country," he said.

Irregular actions by a president, Ikrar said, could include the purchase of luxury items like imported cars or a plane, in a particularly bad economic year.

"Former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam, for instance, was dismissed over a budget crisis -- when his government was plagued by economic problems -- by Governor General Sir John Kerr, a man whom Whitlam had appointed. That's professionalism."

He said there should also be provisions for temporarily releasing a president, should he or she be allegedly involved in a criminal act.

"When a president is temporarily released from his presidential duties during a criminal investigation, who, other than the vice president, should take over a portion of the duties, should be deliberated on," he said.

"Special security for police investigators looking into a criminal case involving the president, for instance, is needed. This is not to say that the police cannot take care of themselves, but this is a violent country."

He added that the law should specifically define that once a crime is committed by a president, even if it was committed 15 or 50 years ago, a crime is still a crime.

At least a paragraph of an article in the law, he said, could be devoted to situations where a president is found harboring a suspect in a criminal case, or being aware of the crime but not reporting it.

A draft law is normally discussed by House members with government officials for an indefinite period, before being passed by the House and signed by the president.

Separately, legislator Panda Nababan said that the draft law should primarily define the protocol between a president -- whether as head of state or head of government -- and the Indonesian Military, the Ministries of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs and the Cabinet.

Panda, a legislator of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), added that another matter that needed to be defined was that whether a former president could stand again for the presidency, after completing his or her two-year term, once another president completes his or her two-year term.

"In the case of Bruneigate, legislators are finding it difficult to probe because we have no benchmarks. It has become a legal problem," Panda said.

Meanwhile, Satya Arinanto said the House of Representatives would only discuss the law after the second amendment to the 1945 Constitution, which to date has not been issued.

"After reading the articles of the presidential bill, I felt that there was a lot of repetition in the prevailing laws and regulations.

"I made some notes to be included in the draft, but I haven't heard DPR's response since," Satya said.

He added that he had suggested articles to be devoted to matters like the questioning of a president in criminal cases, but they were not included.

"I think an article in the bill should also include how much a president can spend on luxuries, like imported cars and the number of overseas trips in a year," Satya said. (ylt)