Police bill goes ahead despite criticism
JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives has completed its deliberation of a controversial police bill and plans to endorse it early next month despite public criticism over some of its articles.
Golkar legislator Andi Mattalata defended the House's work and said yesterday that over the course of deliberation between June and July, the bill improved significantly from the original document.
In addition, the House accommodated "public aspirations" in the bill, Mattalata said.
Speaking to reporters after receiving a delegation of three lawyer associations a legal aid foundation who protested the bill yesterday, Mattalata said the bill would also be better than the No. 13/1965 Police Law it sought to amend.
Mattalata, who headed the House's deliberation team, said it was impossible for the House to accommodate the lawyers' call yesterday to postpone the discussion on the bill.
The associations included the Indonesian Bar Association, Indonesian Advocates Association, Association of Indonesian Lawyers, and the Foundation of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI).
"If postponed, then it will still be the 1965 law which remains in effect. It has long been cited as obsolete compared to our Criminal Code Procedures which many have dubbed as the nation's monumental legal masterpiece," Mattalata said.
The three lawyer associations and YLBHI said the police bill should not be endorsed because it failed to encompass many "fundamental and strategic" problems.
They cited the poorly defined boundaries for what constitutes police authority and their function "as law enforcers, and as servants and protectors of the public".
Bambang Widjojanto of YLBHI told reporters after meeting with Mattalata that the bill, if passed, would give police excessive authority to use violence in the absence of a clear, controlling body.
"If the state is given such power, it would be prone to human rights violations," Bambang said.
Mattalata, however, argued that if the public found that police were not using their power correctly, they could sue the police through a pretrial court hearing allowed by the Criminal Code Procedures.
The public would also be able to lodge complaints with the Police Council of Ethics, which is to be established following the endorsement of the bill, or even press charges against the police using an upcoming law on soldiers' discipline.
The latter law, according to Mattalata, will be passed along with the police bill, the bill on the military tribunal court, and the bill on mass mobilization.
Separately, Aisyah Aminy of the United Development Party, who the lawyer associations and YLBHI also met, said it was impossible for the House to postpone the police bill.
"Besides, all input (by the lawyer associations and YLHBI) has been discussed during the deliberation of the bill," she said. (aan)