Irawaty Wardany, Jakarta – The amendment of the military tribunal law has hit a deadlock at the House of Representatives with the government adamant that civilian police cannot be authorized to investigate soldiers accused of nonmilitary crimes.
The deliberations of the draft bill to amend the 1997 law have been stuck on this issue for the past three months, lawmaker Andreas H. Paraira told a press conference Friday.
"The government is yet to accept that the investigation process (of military personnel) shall be done according to the general court system," said Andreas, who chairs a House special committee to deliberate the bill.
However, he added that the government – in this case the Defense Ministry – had agreed with the House that soldiers should be tried by public courts, not military tribunals, for criminal charges.
After three years of discussing the bill, the House and the government are still divided over which authorities should investigate military officers involved in nonmilitary offenses, Andreas said.
"We are still debating whether police or military police investigators should be granted the right to investigate criminal cases involving military personnel," said deputy head of the special committee for the amendment Azis Syamsuddin.
He confirmed that the government refused to allow police to investigate nonmilitary charges against soldiers. "We are facing difficulties with the government's stance, which does not seem to fully accept reforms in the military court system," said Aslaini Agus, another deputy head of the special committee.
She said that if the government agreed to allow public courts to try military personnel, it should also allow all mechanisms in the general court system to be applied for accused soldiers.
"That is where the core problem lies: The government agrees to let civilian courts deal with cases involving Army personnel but insists the investigation into them be handled by investigators from the military police," Aslaini said.
Doni Ardianto from the Democratic Education Association (P2D), speaking at the same press conference, said the amendment to the law was not only a matter of reforming the Indonesian Military (TNI) but also about giving greater protection to the rights of its personnel. "We have seen many cases handled by the military court that neglected the rights of TNI members," he said.
Examples of these violations were that military suspects did not have the right to inform their families about their arrest, or to appoint their own lawyers. "Most likely they will not be able to get these rights if they are tied to the military judicial system," Doni added.
Bhatara Ibnu Reza from human rights group Imparsial said that in investigating crimes based on the integrated criminal justice system, the civilian police, not the military police, should take charge.
"Putting the military police into this system will make it as though they have jurisdiction in the general court system, and this will lead to chaos in the implementation of the Criminal Code Procedures," he added.