- A Question of Justice After Zainal Abidin Execution
- Legislation Day Is Not The Answer Of House’s Failed Priorities
- President Joko Widodo Formed A Selection Committee for KPK Leaders
Supreme Court
A Question of Justice After Zainal Abidin Execution
The accusation of an unfair trial on Zainal Abidin; executed in April 29th 2015 began to circulate with recent finding of the administrative process on his appeal process to the High Court. Zainal Abidin submitted his case review on May 5th 2005 but apparently Palembang court fail to send it to the Supreme Court. It was later on when the press wrote his name amongst those who received death penalties, then the Palembang regional court send his case review to the Supreme Court. Oddly, the Supreme Court only needed a couple of days to reject his case review and still hold to the death penalty imposed by the High Court of South Sumatra.
Chairman of Judicial Commission, Suparman Marzuki, gave his statement that a mishandling of a case review as happened in Zainal Abidin’s case is inexcusable. Such is not just a personal carelessness but a perfect example of incompetence by the court.. Zainal Abidin’s has to pay years in the correctional institution. From 2005 to 2015, Zainal Abidin rights for a fair trial seems denied by the regional court of Palembang. To make things worse, The Supreme Court, the Attorney General office and President Joko Widodo seems to put a blind eye on the whole process itself.
It should be put into notion to all parties that death sentences should be given with full consideration that the evidence should be beyond reasonable doubt before imposing it to the defendant. The defendant himself should went through a fair trial; a questionable one since during the early stages of interrogation Zainal Abidin is without a legal counsel. But since the execution is already taking place; the only legal process Zainal Abidin’s descendant could pursue is civil suit against the state for mistakenly did not properly process his case review request. The Supreme Court and the Attorney General office should take a lesson in Zainal Abidin’s case in the future since the justice delayed is justice denied.(MSG)
House of Representatives
Legislation Day Is Not The Answer Of House’s Failed Priorities
Discourse about Legislation Day, proposed back during the plenary session in period IV 2014-2015. In his speech as Chairman of the House, Setya Novanto explained that the House’s determination of legislation day is compulsory to reach the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) target. As for this year, legislation targets a total of 37 Prolegnas priority bill, with 26 Parliament initiative, 10 Government initiatives and 1 initiative from the House of Regional Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah/DPD). In fact the idea of Legislation Day already been started during the House period of 2009-2014. Mondays and Thursdays are designated as Legislation Day with expectation during those days days, all of House’s working unit are being optimized for bill discussion sessions. Despite their attempt, the House of Representatives still failed to reach both theur annual and 5 year also.
Ronald Rofiandri, our Director of Monitoring, Advocacy and Networking stating that having Legislation Day as solution for productivity problem is too easy attempt; since the root of the matter, which is careful legislation planning did not being addressed at all. There are three area on the early stages of a legislation process, starting from Prolegnas itself that emphasizes the quantity aspect as targets This resulted the amount of the priority bill annually always exceed the House’s capabilities. The next stage would be the allocated time to draft the bill is too short. The 2009-2014 Prolegnas was only given two months to prepare the initial bill to be discussed for a five year priority; which an ideally should be done in the course of one year minimal. Next is the isolated interest of each government units and the House itself while planning the bill; which complicate matters. After the planning process; during the stages of discussing the bill amongst House’s member, time become a problem since sessions are too short compared to recess period. Next is a schedule conflict between House’s member duties such as budgeting and monitoring aside from legislation
The success of Legislation Day remains to be seen, despite our assuming prediction that it would resulted negatively since it fail to address the real problem of legislation (RW)
Legal Policy
President Joko Widodo Formed A Selection Committee for KPK Leaders
President Joko Widodo, by Presidential decree, formed a selection committee to select candidates of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) leaders consisting of nine people from various backgrounds. The nine includes Destri Damayanti (financial and monetary economists), Enny Nurbaningsih (constitutional law expert), Harkristuti Harkrisnowo (criminal law and human rights experts), Betty Alisjahbana (IT expert, former CEO from IBM), Yenti Garnasih (legal expert of money laundering), Supra Wimbarti (human resources and educational psychologists), Natalia Subagyo (governance and bureaucracy reform expert), Diani Sadiawati (laws and regulations bureaucrat), and Meuthia Ganie Rochman (sociologist). The committee will select eight candidates of to be submitted to the House of Representatives to be selected as KPK commissioners . Meanwhile, the position of one commissioner was already available, between Busyro Muqoddas and Robby Arya Brata who already went through the fit and proper test in 2014.
According to Law No. 5 Year 2014 on State Civil Apparatus mandated that high leadership positions must be open and competitive by considering the requirements of competence, qualifications, rank, education and training, track record positions, and integrity and other requirements in accordance with the provisions of the law. Selection of qualified candidates for KPK commissioners should be come from a committee of integrity, credibility and independent. The public has high hopes for the selection committee for them could select future KPK commissioners. KPK duties in coordination with other legal enforcement agency on, supervision, investigation, prevention and monitoring need to be evaluated by the committee. The evaluation results can be used to determine the criteria of leaders needed by KPK. But more than that, the hope for eradication of corruption is not enough to just focus on the KPK, but also on other law enforcement officers. Conflict among law enforcement agencies, as occurred in KPK and the police, should be on the agenda in the fight against corruption in particular and law enforcement in general. (ED)