Rights body spurns human rights bill

JAKARTA (JP): A rights group rejected on Wednesday a government-sponsored bill on human rights, saying that it should be included in the 1945 Constitution.

The Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) said human rights was a "basic norm" which should be asserted as a "constitutional right".

"According to the hierarchy of norms, a law should be based on the basic norm... so if human rights is only placed in a law, the protection of human rights could be ignored by other laws," PBHI's executive director Hendardi told members of the Golkar faction at the House of Representatives.

Legislators are still deliberating the bill on human rights and the National Commission on Human Rights, which was submitted to the House in April by Justice Minister Muladi, a former rights body member.

Hendardi said the bill would only be able to prosecute perpetrators of human rights abuses which occurred no more than five years after they were reported.

"This clearly violates the Criminal Code, which stipulates that a case only expires after 20 years," he said.

Article 118 of the bill stipulates that investigations into alleged human rights abuses should not be carried out, or should be stopped, if they are reported five years after the incident.

Since Soeharto stepped down in May last year, there have been widespread calls for prosecution of the military over several cases of alleged human rights abuses.

The shooting of Muslim protesters in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, in 1984, and the alleged widespread human rights abuses during a decade of anti-rebel operations in Aceh, only halted last year, are some of the incidents aired by the public.

Hendardi said there should be more public debate during deliberation of the bill before it was passed and ratified by the President.

"The House will not be able to answer this precondition, because the members are running out of time," he said, referring to the inauguration of new legislators in August.

"Another problem is that the bill will not be accepted, or will face very low public acceptance, as the House members' legitimacy is in question."

People have said the current legislators were elected in rigged elections under Soeharto's rule. They have also been widely criticized as "remnants of the New Order".

The government has said the bill was aimed at empowering the rights body.

In April, Muladi said the rights commission would have the authority to resolve rights violations disputes, with its verdicts being legally binding, appealed only to the Supreme Court.

Soeharto established the rights commission in 1993 through a presidential decree, amid mounting international criticism over the country's poor human rights record.

Despite the weakness of its legal authority, the rights body is widely respected for its high integrity.

Many of the commission's recommendations to resolve human rights disputes have been ignored by the conflicting parties, particularly the government. (byg)