No RI laws have political bias, say legal experts
No RI laws have political bias, say legal experts
JAKARTA (JP): Experts said yesterday there was no political
judicature in Indonesia despite people being persecuted for
allegedly spreading hatred against the state.
University of Indonesia law professor Loebby Loqman and lawyer
Luhut M.P. Pangaribuan were of the same opinion that no laws were
politically bias.
But if a person was accused of violating the Criminal Code by
sowing hatred against the state, then he was considered to have
committed a political crime, Loebby told a seminar on political
judiciary and law.
The seminar also featured legislator Oka Mahendra, human
rights campaigners, Baharuddin Lopa and Soetandyo Wignjosoebroto,
and political observer Arbi Sanit.
Loebby said there was confusion about the term "political
crime". He said that, under the subversion law, all political
actions could be branded as crimes and the perpetrators could
therefore be tried.
He said the attorney general classified an action a political
crime whenever it had political background, whereas the law did
not discern whether an action had political or non-political
motives.
Despite the absence of a clear-cut definition on what
constituted a political crime, "in practice (the authorities)
attempt to solve political conflicts through the court," he said.
"Legally, there's no such thing as political judicature.
"The judicature is only the law courts," Luhut said.
But sociologically "a legal process does not rely only on...
formal legal institutions... it, instead, is influenced by (other
factors such as) political, economic and cultural powers," he
quoting legal expert Satjipto Rahardjo as saying.
On "political judicature" under the New Order administration,
Luhut said people were mistaken if they expected the courts to
act as the last bastion of justice.
Because "neutral and non-discriminatory laws, in their
implementation, have different results than what's promised in
their text," he said.
Luhut said that people subjected to political judicature had
only been trying to exercise their constitutional rights at a
time when those in power wished to retain their policies "without
evaluation from outside of the system".
He said that only student activists and members of non-
governmental organizations used to be subjected to political
judicature. But, more recently, political judicature had caught a
wide range of people including retired servicemen and
legislators.
"In short, everyone who is prodemocracy has become a potential
target of political judicature," he said.
He said some laws were frequently exploited for political
judicature. They included the subversion law and the law of
defamation against the President and Vice President.
Baharuddin Lopa said that a modern country was meant to be
characterized by democratization, law enforcement and prosperity.
The subversion law should be abolished, he said and cited
several shortcomings of the law that had often been used to
prosecute government critics. (05)