Habibie fails to uphold supremacy of law: Experts
Habibie fails to uphold supremacy of law: Experts
JAKARTA (JP): The government has failed to uphold the
supremacy of law as an integral part of the reform movement, law
practitioners said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a seminar, lawyers Bambang Widjojanto of the
Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and Frans Hendra Winarta,
stressed that the government missed the message of the urgent
need to reform the culture of law enforcers. Instead, new legal
instruments were produced under the government's agenda of legal
supremacy.
"In translating the supremacy of law during the one and half
years under President B.J. Habibie, he has already submitted 38
bills on various subjects to the House of Representatives (DPR),
some of which have been passed," Bambang said.
"That's what Habibie often refers to as upholding the law," he
added.
However, if the content of the bills were viewed, he said,
they would be far from serving the need to protect the public or
guarantee human rights. Bambang cited the state security bill
scheduled to be passed on Thursday.
On the contrary, the bills were merely produced for
"impulsive" reasons just for the sake of making laws, Bambang
said.
"So Pak Muladi is hired by Habibie to draw up any kind of
bill," Bambang said, referring to Minister of Justice/State
Secretary Muladi.
Such legal reform "only polishes the very surface of law and
law enforcement," he said.
He joked that Habibie should be given a mention in the
Guinness Book of Records for the many bills proposed to the House
during his term in office.
Meanwhile, noted lawyer Frans Hendra Winarta said stagnant law
enforcement dates back to the period under first president
Sukarno.
Frans alleged that verdicts made by judges here were mostly
biased with political interest shown to the government.
"Judges should not be civil servants," he said. "They have to
be independent and should be only placed under the judicial
institution," he said. Judges work under the Ministry of Justice.
Monitoring judicial practices in the 1960 and 1970 rules
clearly show government intervention, he said.
He also added that there were obscure job descriptions among
law enforcers which led to the weakened institutions.
"In a law enforcement scheme, the police must find guilt based
on facts, while the prosecutor's office probes guilt based on
legal technicalities. But here the job description among the two
prominent law enforcers overlap," Frans said.
He said legal reform would depend on political will from the
government.
Bambang added, "Presently, we cannot just wait for political
will, we have to grab it or create it." (emf)