Ary Hermawan and Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Rights activists have condemned the government for its lack of commitment to settling unresolved human rights abuse cases and urged it to set a clear-cut agenda.
"The government has no clear vision as to where rights abuse cases may lead. We must remind Yudhoyono that his administration has to be strict and clear in dealing with the issue," senior lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution said Friday.
The Constitutional Court scrapped Thursday a 2004 law mandating the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR), which activists and rights abuse victims had hoped would pave the way for the disclosure of rights cases before the establishment of a rights tribunal in 2000.
Lawmakers and prosecutors are also at odds, over whether the latter can investigate military general accused of the kidnappings of democracy activists in 1997 and 1998.
"The ruling shows that the government was dubious in its efforts to solve rights abuses that occurred in the past," Taufiq Basari of the Indonesian Foundation of Legal Aid Institutes said at a joint press conference.
Buyung said the KKR bill was prematurely passed as it was secretly opposed by the government and its supporters, such as the Golkar Party, who were afraid of the legal consequences they could face if the body was established.
"Many members of the Golkar party and the Nadhlatul Ulama who might have been involved (in rights abuses in the past) are worried the body will reveal the truth," he said.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin said the people's expectation were too high and hence the gap between them and reality was inevitable. "For that reason, people always say there has been no improvement in human rights," he said.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Rights Commission criticized the Indonesian prosecutors for refusing to follow up on the findings of the rights commission on the activists' abductions.
"This is a denial of the fundamental obligations that Indonesia should follow as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, and as a party to the UN treaties and conventions," it said in a statement.
Hamid refused to comment on the latest ruling but said that the government would have to accept it. "We will have to read a copy of the ruling first," he said.
Akil Muchtar, deputy chairman of the special committee which drafted the law and deliberated it with the government, questioned the court's verdict, which he said "allows rights (violation) perpetrators to buy time".
"The people, especially victims of human rights abuses and their families, should not blame the House for the long delay in the efforts to work on unresolved human rights violations in the past," he said.
Lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis asked why the court had dropped the law altogether instead of just the few articles requested by the petitioners. "The House may one day review the law establishing the Constitutional Court," he said.