KHN urges government to revise antigraft laws
KHN urges government to revise antigraft laws
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Law Commission (KHN) suggested on Monday that the government revise articles in existing laws in a bid to strengthen efforts to fight corruption, rather than issuing an antigraft regulation in lieu of law.
The commission argued that the House of Representatives would very likely reject the planned anti-graft regulation, with legislators questioning the reasons for such a move.
KHN chairman J.E. Sahetapy said the House may refuse to consider the draft for the proposed government regulation because there was no emergency situation that warranted issuing it.
"They (House members) may well question whether the current situation is urgent enough for the government to issue such a ruling," he said after a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta.
Sahetapy said the commission had advised the President to revise certain articles in the anticorruption law and the Criminal Code, which have large loopholes that have often been exploited by big-time white collar criminals to escape justice.
It would be better for the government not to go ahead with its plan to issue a government regulation to close these loopholes, he added.
A government regulation in lieu of law is usually issued in response to an emergency condition. Proponents for the regulation, however, claim that endemic corruption has reached an alarming level due to poor law enforcement.
According to Sahetapy, President Susilo "has agreed to review the plan".
The government has said it would issue an antigraft regulation in a bid to accelerate and strengthen its efforts to combat corruption, saying existing laws are weak in capturing and convicting high profile white collar criminals.
Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin had said that the proposed regulation was one of the government's main weapons in seriously fighting corruption.
The government regulation would be applied to suspected white collar criminals accused of causing losses to the state of at least Rp 50 billion (US$5.4 million).
Once declared suspects they would be immediately detained and would not be released until a court issued final verdicts on their respective cases.
The draft of the regulation also allows for the detention of suspected white collar criminals from the very beginning of investigations.
Many convicted white collar criminals have managed to avoid justice as prevailing laws can be exploited so that they are not sent to jail until after binding verdicts are handed down by the Supreme Court, giving them opportunity to flee the country.
The planned regulation will also shift the burden of proof to the accused in corruption cases, as well as provide witness protection guarantees.