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.