Human rights body beefs up legal status
JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights is working to strengthen its status to be a more independent and authoritative institution, its chairman said yesterday.
Marzuki Darusman said the commission was negotiating with the government and the House of Representatives to make a law on the institution and its authority in promoting the implementation of human rights in the country.
"We hope we can complete negotiations by the end of this year and then we will would work to design a draft law to be proposed to the House to be endorsed," he told The Jakarta Post after delivering a speech at a seminar on human rights sponsored by the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) here.
Marzuki said a strong legal basis would give the rights body the authority to investigate human rights violations on their own initiative and follow up on the findings, instead of just making recommendations.
"With the law, we will have the authority to carry out investigations, including bringing forward witnesses to testify without fear of being intimidated, abducted or tortured."
The rights body, which was established in 1993 based on a presidential decree, has been permitted only to make recommendations from results of its findings in the field. It has no authority to carry out investigations on its own or to compel authorities to follow up on their findings on human rights violations.
Military culture
Marzuki also said the restrictive military culture that pervades the bureaucracy was not conducive to the true protection of human rights in the country.
"The past government issued too many restrictions and limitations, instead of playing role as a facilitator, so that many actions it took were against human rights," he said.
He acknowledged that former president Soeharto's regime had ratified several United Nations conventions but it had a hollow commitment to comply with them.
"The ratifications of the convention were symbolic actions," he said, citing the practices of intimidation and repression which prevailed for many years.
Marzuki hailed President B.J. Habibie's recent decision to launch a national human rights campaign, saying it should be counted as an advancement in the effort to promote rights protection.
ELSAM chairman Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara urged the public to be more active in pressing the government and the House to ratify conventions and to fully comply with them.
He said the torture of land owners who refused to sell their land to businesspeople, the recent abductions of student activists and the use of repressive approaches in police and military investigations were evidence of the urgent need for the country to immediately ratify the UN conventions.
Up to now, of 25 UN conventions on human rights, only four have been ratified by Indonesia. The country has yet to ratify the prime convention, the International Bill of Human Rights, and two main covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, he said. (rms)