House of Representatives
Formation of Standing Orders Must Be Halted
On 26 August 2014, the House of Representatives officially established the Special Committee on the Alteration of the Indonesian House of Representatives Regulation on the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives. In accordance to the mandate, the Special Committee is assigned to compile the Standing Orders, which will be applied for the 2014-2019 House of Representatives period. This initiative has reaped rejection from the public and civil society organizations.
This rejection is due to the legal base of the Standing Orders, being Law No. 17 Year 2014 on the People’s Consultative Assembly, House of Representatives, House of Regional Representatives, and Regional House of Representatives (MPR, DPR, DPD, dan DPD/ MD3 Law), which is still undergoing a judicial process at the Constitutional Court. This is why the Indonesian House of Representatives first issued the decision for a judicial review. In addition, the Standing Orders will be enforced for the next period of the House of Representatives. Therefore it would be much better if the rules were to be formed by those who will serve. The formation of the Standing Orders at the end of the House’s tenure is a repeat of what was done five years ago. At the time, two new political parties (Hanura and Gerindra), was forced not to have any representatives in the Honorary Agency (Badan Kehormatan), since the makers of the Standing Orders are not able to envisage the new conditions of the upcoming House of Representatives period. Therefore, the practice of forming the Standing Orders should be handed over to the upcoming period of House of Representatives, not the current one.
The rapid formation of the Special Committee to alter the House of Representatives Standing Orders has been heavily affected by political interests. The position of the House Speaker is still considered very strategic and significant to be obtained. However, this rapid change is feared to only accommodate the interests of certain political groups, and ignore the main purpose in developing a House of Representatives able to carry out its functions transparently and accountably. (FN)
House of Representatives
Indirect System Would Concede People’s Sovereignty Politicians
A survey of the Indonesian Survey Institute (Lembaga Survei Indonesia/LSI), conducted last September, shows that more than 80 percent of the 1200 respondents in 33 provinces agree that regional heads should remain elected in a direct election system. It is contrary to the aspiration of the Red-and-White Coalition, which supports Prabowo Subianto in the last presidential election, in the discussion of the Local Elections Bill in the House of Representatives. The House’s majority group of factions was pushing a system where regional heads are elected by the local parliament or Regional House of Representatives. The coalition claims the indirect election system can save the state budget.
However, more than just a budget issue, delegating power of the regional head elections to the local parliament is a form of “setback of democracy”. The direct election system, in principle, is a mechanism of handing state sovereignty to the people. This system is a consequence of the decentralization of power from the central government to local governments. During President Soeharto’s regime (from 1967 to early 1998), all governors, mayors, and regents were appointed by the central government. Since the implementation of regional autonomy in 1999, all regional heads in every level of local government were elected by local parliaments. This system was considered as a transition from the centralized system to the direct election system. Indonesia managed to implement direct local elections for the first time in 2005. After implemented for almost a decade, the direct election system received a lot of criticisms; therefore, the government and the parliament need some extra time to enhance the local election regulation. On the contrary, giving authority to the local parliament to choose the regional heads is not a solution, as it means handing sovereignty from the people to the politicians.
Currently, a working committee on the Local Elections Bill has prepared two versions of the draft bill that provide two different systems of local elections: the direct and indirect system. Three factions (PDIP, PKB, and Hanura) support direct elections, while six others factions of the Red-and-White Coalition promote the indirect system. With this condition, the Local Elections Bill that outlines the indirect election system will most likely be passed to become a law.
However, the situation can be reversed if President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, through the Minister of Home Affairs, withdraws the bill’s discussion at the House of Representatives. Under Article 20 of the 1945 Constitution, a bill must obtain a joint approval of the President and the House of Representatives to be passed into a law. Thus, if the president refuses to attend the session, the joint approval could not be reached. The Constitution also stipulates that a bill that fails in gaining joint approval cannot be re-submitted during the same session. Hence, the president’s role in suspending the local elections bill would be very significant to intercept the implementation of the indirect system. (RA)
Legal Policy
Enforcing Government Responsibility towards Munir Case
Mahfudz Siddiq (Chairman of Commission I of the House of Representatives) has stated that the murder case towards human rights activist, Munir, is one of the government’s homework that needs to be finished. That statement was in response to the insistence from John Kerry (US Secretary of State) towards the Indonesian government to uphold justice and punish the perpetrators of the Munir murder case.
Munir died aboard a Garuda Indonesia aircraft on it’s way from Jakarta to the Netherlands on 7 September 2004. According to the autopsy results done by the authorities of the Netherlands, arsenic was found inside Munir’s body in doses larger than normal. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who at the time was just being sworn in as President, was encouraged to act on the case. He then issued Presidential Decision No. 111 Year 2004 on The Forming of the Fact-Finding Team of the Munir Case. In line with the activities of the fact-finding team, the criminal justice process also was also run. The court decided on three Garuda employees that were guilty in the case and freed a former head of state intelligence agency, Muchdi PR, from all charges. The case of Munir’s death, which was controversial in terms of the event, perpetrators and law enforcement, has left a question mark within the public. A decade has passed and the results from the fact-finding team has never been publicized when in fact, item nine of the Presidential Decision states that “the Government will announce its findings to the public.”
It has become the responsibility of the government to inform the public of the results from the fact-finding team of the Munir case. In the remaining time of this period, the government should display efforts on following through with its commitments. Their silence will only further degrade the public’s trust towards the work of their agencies. (ED)
Legal Discourse
Phone Tapping Regulations to Support Corruption Eradication
Jakarta Court of Corruption has found guilty and sentenced non-active Banten Governor, Ratu Atut Chosiyah. Regardless of the pros and cons of the decision, there is a legal issue that’s found interesting to be further discussed. One of the judges who decided on the case, Alexander Marwata, gave a dissenting opinion and stated that Atut should be freed from charges. One of his reasons for this decision was that the evidence of phone tapping submitted by the Corruption Eradication Commission does not fulfill the qualifications for evidence, therefore cannot be brought forth in trial. Furthermore, in Alexander’s opinion, there has been some sort of modification towards the recording in order to enhance the voice quality.
This isn’t the first time a judge has questioned tapping and recorded conversations by the Corruption Eradication Commission. For example, in the imported beef bribery case with defendant Ahmad Fathanah, the judge did not allow the prosecutors (from the Corruption Eradication Commission) to play the recording between Ahmad Fathanah and Ayu Azhari. The reason at the time was because the recorded conversation through phone tapping did not relate to the material of the case at hand. There is a lack of regulatory clarity of the phone tapping procedure and how they are played in trials. This has affected and has been detrimental towards the Corruption Eradication Commission in prosecuting cases of corruption. In our opinion, there should be efforts in supporting the regulations on phone tapping to be refined immediately in the form of a law.
As of this moment, the regulations on phone tapping are spread out across 16 different regulations, each of which has different arrangements therefore needing synchronization. The result of this synchronization will be combined with various decision of the Constitutional Court on phone tapping, which are Constitutional Court Decision No. 006/PUU-I/2003, No. 012-016-019/PUU IV/2006, and No. 5/PUU-VIII/2010. These decisions have also already given us and advancement on the procedural criteria of phone tapping that is done on the basis of the law (lawful interception). These regulations start off with determining the party that’s given the authority to conduct the tapping, when it should start and stop, how to sort the results, how to verify the results, up to the storing and destructing of the results. The steps needed to be taken actually aren’t very difficult. Various provisions and decisions from the Constitutional Court simply need to be formed into laws regarding tapping therefore in the future there would be certainty upon the subject. (MSG)