Anita Rachman, Jakarta – The House of Representatives on Monday passed a revision of the 2002 Clemency Law, which will allow a greater role for the government, shorten the appeals process, and restrict convicts to one pardon for life.
The amendment, the sixth piece of legislation passed since October, was considered urgent in light of the 2,106 requests for clemency currently pending, Tjatur Sapto Edy, deputy chairman of House Commission III overseeing legal affairs, said at Monday's plenary session.
"All the pending requests will be processed and resolved by October 22, 2012," said the National Mandate Party (PAN) lawmaker.
Under the amended law, the government has more authority to review pleas for clemency as well as to interview applicants to evaluate their eligibility for a presidential pardon.
The government is also authorized to flag outstanding cases to the president, include those involving convicts who have not applied for a pardon, such as children and the elderly, because they are unaware of the legal option available to them.
"The amended law will also oblige the Supreme Court to limit the time in which it must give a ruling on each request for clemency to 30 days," Tjatur said.
Under the 2002 Clemency Law, the court was allowed three months to deliberate a clemency request and advise the president of its final recommendations.
Another major change is that convicts will only be allowed to apply for clemency once, and the supporting documents must be submitted within a year of their conviction at the latest.
Previously, convicts were allowed to file a repeat request two years after their first appeal was rejected, while death-row convicts who had their sentences commuted to life were allowed to seek a pardon two years after the commute.
Meanwhile, Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar welcomed the passage of the amended law and vowed to have all the pending clemency requests resolved by October 2012.
"The legal framework is all clear, and we have sufficient time to process the requests," he said.
"Our priority at this point is to process the cases of those who are either ignorant of their right to seek clemency or don't know how to go about applying for it, who in most cases happen to be kids and the elderly."
Commission III began deliberations on the proposed amendments in April this year, and have held several hearings with Patrialis and other ministry officials on the issue.
Tjatur said the commission's ultimate objective for prioritizing this piece of legislation was to speedily resolve the backlog of clemency requests, which under the 2002 Clemency Law were supposed to have been resolved by October 2004.
"We proposed extending the period in which to deal with these cases up to 2012, which, given the amendments, should be enough time," he said.
Fachri Hamzah, a Commission III legislator from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), called on the government to immediately issue supporting regulations to enforce the amended law, which is not legally binding until the regulations have been issued.
"During our deliberations of the amendment, we've encountered many cases of people who have been wrongly imprisoned," he said.
"They are victims of a rogue justice system, and so the government must issue the supporting regulations as soon as possible."