New drugs ruling not ‘retroactive’

Irawaty Wardany ,  THE JAKARTA POST ,  JAKARTA   |  Mon, 03/23/2009 9:06 AM  |  Headlines

Convicted drugs addicts will continue serving jail time, despite a recent regulation ordering
drug users to receive treatment at rehabilitation centers.

The Supreme Court issued a memo Friday ordering judges not to send drug addicts to prison, but rather to rehabilitation centers.

“But the ruling will not be implemented retroactively,” Supreme Court spokesman Djoko Sarwoko told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

The memo stipulates several requirements for drug users who deserve treatment at rehabilitation centers, including whether they are caught red-handed carrying or consuming illegal drugs.

When arrested, they must only have a maximum of: 0.15 grams of heroine, cocaine or morphine; one roll or 5 grams of marijuana; one ecstasy pill or 0.25 grams of crystal methamphetamines.

Drug users are also obliged to obtain a positive laboratory outcome based on a request by investigators and a recommendation letter from a court-appointed psychiatrist.

They must show no indications of having relapsed, and there must  be no evidence they are drug dealers.

In its memo, the Supreme Court proposed rehabilitation facilities or therapy centers that could be appointed to help drug addicts, including the National Narcotics Agency’s technical execution unit in Lido, Bogor, and its other units across the country, as well as drug addiction hospitals, rehabilitation centers under the Social Services Ministry, hospitals or private rehabilitation centers accredited by the Health Ministry or the Social Services Ministry.

Commenting on the memo, the Indonesian Judiciary Supervisory Community (Mappi) warned such a policy was prone to misuse by suspects and law enforcers.

“Drug suspects could easily pay investigators some money to change their status from drug dealers to drug users,” Mappi’s Hasril Hertanto said Sunday.

He added dealing with people involved in drugs was a “dilemmatic problem” because most of the time drug users also acted as dealers.

“Judges usually determine the status of drug case suspects based on the dossiers presented by police and prosecutors. So they are the ones who must be very cautious about this matter,” Hasril said.

The Supreme Court also issued an edict for the Attorney General’s Office to set a time limit for death row inmates to file requests for case reviews.

Court spokesman Djoko said this edict would not be enforced retroactively either.

There is no law in place yet to regulate the time limit for death row inmates to request case reviews and seek presidential clemency, often prompting years of waiting before they are executed.

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