Munir rues DPR's human rights stance
Munir rues DPR's human rights stance
JAKARTA (JP): A combination of incompetence and legacies from
past regimes are inhibiting the government from upholding the law
and protecting human rights, a watchdog chairman said on
Thursday.
Chairman of the supervisory board of the Commission for
Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Munir, said
that faulty legal instruments inherited from the past
administration were still under its influence.
"As its result, the government has no moving space to reform
them," Munir said at a seminar on the work of the Abdurrahman
administration on legal and human rights affairs.
He suggested the government reshuffle the Cabinet, especially
those members who deal with legal matters.
"How can the government effectively approach the problem when
its ministers of law and legislation and human rights affairs and
the Attorney General, who are supposed to work with the same
vision, all come from different political parties?"
He further blasted what he saw as a lack of synergy between
the government and the House of Representatives (DPR) in facing
this situation.
Munir said the two bodies were using legal affairs and human
rights issues to attack each other.
By way of example, he said that the House had accused the
government-sanctioned National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
HAM) of being ignorant and biased, and urged that its members be
reshuffled, but it had failed to consider that the commissions'
membership is regulated by the law.
"It's the House's task to first change existing laws which
might hamper the government's legal reform efforts rather than
exploit these issues to judge the government. There is a double
standard there," he added.
Commenting on the handling of human rights cases, Munir
accused both the government and the House of lacking concern for
conditions across the nation.
He pointed to the House's use of its interpellation motion not
to censure human rights abuses occurring across the country but
on a political party matter. Numerous rights abuses in Maluku,
Aceh, Irian Jaya and Lampung have never been touched upon by the
legislative body, he added.
"Instead they used it (the interpellation right) to question
the President over two sacked ministers whom no one actually
cares about," he remarked.(bby)