Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) is finalizing a revised draft of the human rights law, which grants the commission more powers, including the authority to prosecute suspected perpetrators of abuses, an official Friday says.

The draft says the commission can launch formal investigations into human rights violation cases and prosecute suspects. The commission's current jurisdiction is limited to making preliminary probes and recommending the Attorney General's Office (AGO) investigate cited human rights violations.

"It will give us more power to bring perpetrators of human rights abuses to justice, just as the Corruption Eradication Commission is allowed to prosecute corrupt people," commissioner Kabul Supriyadhie said Friday.

The commission is consulting the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights to determine how best to approach the House of Representatives, which holds the legislative right to amend the 1999 law.

The commissioner on monitoring, Nur Kholis, said the recent ruling by the Constitutional Court, which stipulates the House must establish an ad-hoc human rights trial to hear crimes against humanity found by the commission, reinforced the amendment to the human rights law.

"Preliminary investigations and criminal investigations are intertwined. It would be more efficient to allow a single institution to conduct both," Nur said.

He said the AGO had been too slow in prosecuting several gross human rights violation cases, including the Trisakti University shooting and the ensuing Semanggi riots of the late 1990s, which left 1,217 dead and saw racial violence, including sexual assault, targeted at ethnic Chinese.

In response to the draft, the chairman of the House's Commission III overseeing justice and human rights, Trimedya Panjaitan, said Sunday the lawmakers would study the draft and seek "another way" to deal with the commission's demand.

"There have been many commissions asking for more powers. We will see whether such requests deserve our priority," said Trimedya, a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle.

The two rights abuse cases have been a hot potato issue for the government due to dissenting opinions among the AGO, the commission and the House concerning what legal measures should be taken.

Recently, the trial process for the Trisakti and Semanggi cases reached another stopping point after the AGO announced both cases were closed on the basis the perpetrators had been tried in a military court and could not face a second trial for the same crime.

Activists and victims of the incidents have repeatedly protested the announcement, saying the top officers responsible for the crimes had not stood trial. (anw)