Marguerite Afra Sapiie, Jakarta – The first part of Indonesia's legal reform package, the government is set to introduce in October, will include institutional reforms within the National Police, a top cop has hinted.
National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said the internal reforms aims to improve work performance of police officers and steer them away from corruption and violence. This would hopefully restore the public's trust towards the country's law enforcement officials.
"Police are the guardians of law supremacy, and we stand at the frontline against crime. With this law reform, we want to take a stronger law enforcement role since the police are key in the country's justice system," Tito said on Friday.
Tito previously revealed that the reform package would cover some policies, including the improvement of police personnel recruitment, investigator certification programs and the strengthening of investigator monitoring systems to encourage professionalism.
Tito further said that aside from empowering internal supervision bodies, such as the police's Internal Affairs Division (Propam), the National Police would also create a mechanism where the public could submit complaints about police investigators, and the police's internal supervisory body would take measures in response to these reports.
"I aim to make breakthroughs within the police's internal body to strengthen law enforcement and ethical sanctions against police personnel found guilty of violating laws," Tito said as quoted by kompas.com.
He said the legal reform package would also aim to strengthen external relations between the National Police and other related institutions, such as the Attorney General's Office, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the House of Representatives.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto has hinted that the law revitalization draft will be completed next week. (ebf)