Rights commission gripes about delay
Rights commission gripes about delay
JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
HAM) criticized on Saturday the sluggish performance of the
Attorney General's Office in dealing with crimes against
humanity.
The commission's secretary-general Asmara Nababan said the
Attorney General's Office should have fared better because in
many cases preliminary evidence was available.
"As one of the law enforcement bodies, the Attorney General's
Office is too slow to meet the people's need for justice," Asmara
said at the sidelines of a seminar held to commemorate the May
12, 1998, fatal shootings of student activists that contributed
to the downfall of former president Soeharto.
Asmara acknowledged that the office lacked experience in
handling human rights abuses, but insisted that this was not an
excuse whatsoever.
"Supposing that judicial bodies are machines, it is necessary
to repair their parts to enable them to work better, instead of
just replacing the machines' operators," Asmara said.
He said cases in the pipeline included the state violence that
followed the forcible takeover of the Indonesian Democratic
Party's head office on July 27, 1996, the May 1998 riots and the
abuse of residents living near pulp company PT Indorayon Inti
Utama's plant in North Sumatra.
Several independent fact finding teams have been formed to
gather evidence of crimes against humanity involving the state
but without satisfactory results, let alone to bring the cases to
court, he said.
Asmara insisted that solutions to the human rights crimes were
important for the government to recover people's trust in the
legal system. The lack of confidence in the legal system has
driven people to take the law into their own hands, he said.
He also pointed out the necessity of restoring the rights of
victims of abuse for the sake of democracy in the future, instead
of just sentencing the perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
Another speaker at the seminar, executive of the Indonesian
Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) Luhut MP Pangaribuan shared his
colleague's opinion on the important role of the House of
Representatives) to speed up legal settlements to any human
rights cases.
"Why doesn't the House react to certain cases as quickly as
the way it responds to economic matters? The House has formed
special committees to inquire into irregularities in our banking
system, but not for human rights abuse cases," he said. (01)