No party offers comprehensive legal plan
No party offers comprehensive legal plan
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
None of the 24 political parties contesting the April 5 elections
offered comprehensive programs to encourage the rule of law or
uphold justice, an activist says.
Mas Achmad Santosa, of the non-governmental organization, the
Partnership for Governance Reform, said some parties appeared to
have no idea at all about the importance of reforms to the legal
system.
"Most parties offered nothing new and many mentioned legal
reforms that state institutions and nongovernmental organizations
are already working on. This proves clearly the parties drafted
their platforms on legal reform without proper study," Santosa
told a group of politicians during a discussion here on Friday.
Santosa said some parties had promised to set up an
anticorruption commission, which already existed.
President Megawati Soekarnoputri inaugurated the Corruption
Eradication Commission (KPK) late in December last year. Dubbed a
"super commission" it has extraordinary powers to investigate and
prosecute alleged corrupters.
The partnership has set a six-point legal reform agenda:
overhaul of the prevailing legal paradigm, legal and legislative
reform, judicial reform, legally enforced reform, court
settlements of all corruption cases and human rights violations
and the institutionalization of law.
Santosa said only one of the 24 parties expressed the
intention to shift the country's existing legal paradigm, which
emphasizes excessive legalism (concentration on the letter of the
law) over the public sense of justice.
Regarding legal and legislative reform, only 15 of the 24
parties had reform programs, he said.
Fourteen parties mostly focused on court settlements of
corruption and human right violations, with three of them
emphasizing a strong judicial institution specialized in handling
corruption cases, one demanding a people's tribunal for
corrupters, one proposing a special court to try corrupters and
one suggesting corruption be declared an extraordinary crime,
Santosa said.
Instead of responding to the partnership's challenge, Eros
Djarot from the Freedom Bull National Party (PNBK) and Ali
Masykur Musa from the National Awakening Party (PKB) shifted the
blame to Megawati's government.
"The present reality shows that the laws are made to be
violated. Even the president fails to set a model for the public
on how to respect the law," Eros said.
Meanwhile, a Golkar deputy leader, Bomer Pasaribu, questioned
the validity of the partnership's data. Golkar had outlined a
comprehensive plan for legal reforms, he said.
The discussion was held ahead of the Third Law Summit here
scheduled for April 8, where the country's law enforcement
institutions are expected to sign an agreement on how to uphold
the supremacy of the law and eradicate corruption.
It will be attended by officials from the Supreme Court, the
Attorney General's Office, the Ministry of Justice and Human
Rights, the National Police, the National Law Commission, the
KPK, and the National Development Planning Coordinating Board.