House to support bill on rights court
House to support bill on rights court
JAKARTA (JP): House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung
confidently asserted on Friday that the House would endorse a
bill establishing a human rights court on July 20.
Akbar made the comment during a meeting with a team of lawyers
representing military and police officers in the East Timor
investigation. The team was led by former Minister of Justice
Muladi.
The team said it wanted to make sure that the bill would be
passed soon so that a decision on their clients, alleged to be
responsible for violence in East Timor, could be processed
quickly.
"We don't want the case to be suspended. We want the case to
be brought to the human rights court," Muladi remarked.
He said the East Timor case which has been investigated for
almost five months, according to the government regulation in
lieu of statute No. 1/1999 should be suspended if it's
investigation reaches six months, which in this case is the end
of July.
Muladi said the team did not want the case to be suspended to
avoid international suspicion that it was unreasonably halted.
"We also urge the House to avoid international pressure
influencing the case or the would-be trial," Muladi, who also
held the post of Minister/State Secretary under former President
B.J. Habibie, said.
The National Inquiry of Human Rights Abuses in East Timor has
named several high ranking military and police officers as being
responsible for human rights violations that occurred during the
violence following the ballot in East Timor last year.
House deputy speaker Soetardjo Soerjogoeritno supported the
team's view that there should not be undue international grounds
to attack Indonesians on the matter.
Minister of Law and Legislation Yusril Ihza Mahendra submitted
the bill to the House on June 6.
"The bill will have no time limit (on its jurisdiction). It
can be used to try human rights abuses that occurred in the
past," Yusril told the House's plenary session.
Visit
In a separate development, the United Nations Transitional
Authority in East Timor (UNTAET) on Friday said a team from the
Indonesian Attorney General's Office would be arriving in Dili
early July.
The purpose of the visit is to question witnesses and
collect material evidence.
The visit was agreed following a meeting between UNTAET's
legal and political representatives and its Indonesian
counterparts in Jakarta last week.
The Indonesian team would not number more than 15 persons and
will stay in Dili for approximately 10 days.
It was also agreed that UNTAET investigators alone would
question witnesses in a number of selected priority cases.
UNTAET estimates that it will take at least three weeks to
locate witnesses, question them and translate these interviews
into Bahasa Indonesia.
The results would then be handed over to the Indonesian
Attorney General's Office. The process of identifying witnesses
started on Sunday.
If necessary the Attorney General's Office team can follow up
with further questioning when it visits East Timor.
However it will be UNTAET who will conduct the questioning in
the presence of an observer from the Attorney General's team.
(jun)