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Juvenile court law set for revision
The law on the juvenile court is set to be revised this year, however, the prison sentence will be handed down to violators under 17 years old
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he law on the juvenile court is set to be revised this year, however, the prison sentence will be handed down to violators under 17 years old.
Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, the human rights directorate general at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, said that the draft of the new bill on the juvenile court law, which maintains the prison sentence, would hopefully be deliberated at the House of Representatives in June.
Despite protests, or the fact that children had to endure legal processes despite their minor status, she insisted that the draft was a step forward from the current 1997 law.
“First, our definition of children has developed from the 1997 law, “children” as perpetrators are those aged from a minimum of 12 years to 18,” Harkristuti said Thursday in Jakarta.
The current law stipulates that the minimum age for a child to undergo legal processes and receive sanctions is 8 years old.
She was speaking after a talkshow discussing the draft, as well as an award event for the 2009 best reporting on children. The event was held by the Independent Journalist Alliance (AJI) and the United Nations Childrens’ Fund.
Those participating in the talkshow included Hadi Supeno from the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) and Muhammad Joni from the National Commission for Child Protection.
She said several other revisions of the law included the removal of the clause mentioning that those below 18 years of age who were married would not be categorized as children, and the use of the terms “child of the state” and “criminal law child”.
“The most prominent feature of the draft is the usage of the restorative justice approach and diversion. The idea of this draft is for the best interest of children and child protection. This approach attempts to keep children from criminal trial processes,” Harkristuti said.
She said that according to the draft, those involved in legal processes would try avoid the offenders and victims of the criminal act from the investigation phase.
Such approaches are limited to offenses that carry a maximum of seven years imprisonment.
In the draft, the penalties include reprimands, warnings, monitoring, social work, and “guidance in an institution”, or imprisonment as the last resort. The current law considers imprisonment as the first alternative in a child’s legal processing.
Hadi Supeno, who disapproved the draft, said that children should be exempted from criminal law processing regardless of the situation.
“According to the KPAI, if you are a child, you cannot be processed by criminal law. The KPAI wants to eradicate child prisons,” he said during the talk show. The law defines that children are those under 18 years of age. Harkristuti said that currently there were 6,308 children held in prisons and in penitentiary centers across the country.
Last month, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono stated in his speech his dissatisfaction of the existing system. (dis)
