Rights body spurns human rights bill

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)