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)