House To Carry On Deliberating Bill On Criminal Code

News Focus - HOUSE TO CARRY ON DELIBERATING BILL ON CRIMINAL CODE By Andi Abdussalam Jakarta, Feb 24 (Antara) - The House of Representatives is likely to continue deliberating the Bill on Criminal Code (KUHP) and the Bill on the Criminal Code Procedures (KUHAP) despite calls to postpone it as its current term is almost ended. Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR) Marzuki Alie has stated that it is urgent for the law-makers to finish the deliberations of the bills in their current term because they still have five months before the legislative election was held on April 9, 2014. The House Speaker argued that there was nothing wrong to deliberate draft laws in the durrent term as long as the relevant parties such as legal experts and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) were involved. "By involving the KPK and many other parties such as legal experts, articles in the bills which have the potential to weaken the KPK, can be identified and can be scrapped," the DPR Speaker said here on Sunday. There is a suspicion that the bills on the KUHP and the on KUHAP will weaken the KPK. Some quarters viewed that certain articles in the bills have the potential to weaken authority of the KPK and eliminate its rights to conduct examinations, investigations and prosecution of (corruption) crime suspects. Thus, they called on the DPR to pospone deliberations of the bills as legislators in the House of Representatives are to end their current term. They argued that strategic issues should not be deliberated in a short deadline. Marzuki Alie said however that the present House members still had five months to discuss the bills before the legislative election was held on April 9 and their tenure was over in September. The bills should be discussed and be endorsed into law soon. "The Netherlands itself no longer uses laws such as those in the KUHP and the KUHAP. The KUHP and the KUHAP are already outdated. So, we have to accomplish the deliberation of the bills so that they could be passed into law," Marzuki Alie said. With regard to the short deadline as the country will already organize a legislative election April 9, 2014, the House Speaker said it could still be discussed after the elections (before the newly elected legislators are installed). However, many quarters such as the KPK, the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) and the Anti-Corruption Research Center of the University of Gajah Mada, have urged the House to stop the deliberations of the two bills for the time being. They made the appeal as they suspected that some articles in the bills will adversely weaken the KPK and other institutions such as the Financial Transaction Analysis and Report Center (PPATK) and the National Narcotics Agency (BNN). According to Surya Paloh, the chairman of the National Democratic Party (Nasdem), the deliberation of the bills should be postponed. Though revision is yet to be made, the existing system will not cause disturbance in the Indonesian legal structure. "I think postponement is the best choice. It is needless to feel that we will lose everything if the deliberations of the bills are not accomplished this month. There are still many other urgent jobs that still have to be done," Surya Paloh said. He said that the House had better focus on accomplishing its performance on other jobs until the end of its term in September 2014. The KUHP and KUHAP revision could be done by the new legislators and new government in the next term. "This will allow legislators to discuss it easily because they will have ample time to deliberate it and make improvement," Surya Paloh said. Therefore, the NasDem chairman supported the KPK efforts to ask for the postponement of the bills. "So, what is the use to have a new bill if it will only create controversies? Why should we not optimize what we already have now, at least for the time being," Surya Paloh questioned. On Wednesday, the KPK sent a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, House of Representatives Speaker Marzuki Alie and the Working Committee Chairman of Commission III of the House, Azis Syamsuddin. In the letter, the KPK asked for the postponement of the draft law on KUHP and KUHAP because it suspected that the bills posed a threat to the existence of the KPK. The KPK is of the view that the revision of the KUHP and the KUHAP, has the potential to weaken or to reduce its authorities, namely the elimination of its right to investigate a criminal case, the possibility of criminal crimes which are stipulated in the KUHP, to be referred to the KUHAP, the abolition of its prosecution right, the elimination of its right to extend a detention period of a suspect during the investigation and the shortening of detention period of a suspect. With regard to this, Hayono Isman, a contestant in the ruling Democratic Party presidential candidate convention, said that the revision of the KUHP and the KUHAP must be adjusted to the reforms spirit, law enforcement and corruption elimination program. In this regard, Deputy Chairman of Commission III of the House Azis Syamsuddin agreed if the government withdrew the draft bills of the KUHP and the KUHAP from the House deliberations. "If the government is willing to withdraw it, I will agree to it because the bills were submitted by the government. Commission III (on legal affairs) is only doing its jobs," Azis Syamsuddin said. Yet, according to Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin, the two draft laws could not be withdrawn by the government without the approval of the House of Representatives because they were now under the deliberation of Commission III. The commission has deliberated them since December 11, 2012. "Now the bills have been submitted to the Working Committee which discusses its substance based on the List of Problems (DIM)," Amir explained. The minister said that revision of the KUHP and KUHAP would not weaken the KPK and reduce its authorities. "The bills on the KUHP and KUHAP are `lex generalis` in nature so that they will not eliminate the KPK authority to conduct examinations, investigations and prosecution," the minister stressed. He said that the bill on the KUHP was drafted in an effort to modify criminal laws so that all principles in the criminal laws will be effective for all crimes, both crimes as stipulated in the KUHP and those stipulated by other laws outside the KUHP. This means that the revised KUHP will not abolish the effectiveness of laws outside the KUHP because laws outside the KUHP were `lex specialis` in nature as regulated in Artile 757 and Article 758 of the Bill on KUHP. "Thus, the Bill on KUHP will not eliminate the existence of laws outside the KUHP and will not illegitimate the existence of other legal enforcement institutions such as the KPK," the minister stated.