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Lawmakers defend the rights of corruptors
Amir SyamsuddinJAKARTA: A coalition of lawmakers is circulating a petition challenging a government policy not to reduce the prison sentences of corruption convicts
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Amir Syamsuddin
JAKARTA: A coalition of lawmakers is circulating a petition challenging a government policy not to reduce the prison sentences of corruption convicts.
The legislators plan to summon President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to the House to explain the policy, which the legislators claim violate the right of the corruptors.
Eighty-seven lawmakers have signed the petition, including Deputy House Speaker Priyo Budi Santoso of the Golkar Party, who added his name on Monday after receiving the petition from lawmakers on House Commission III overseeing legal affairs.
Commission III lawmakers backing the document include Trimedya Panjaitan from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P); Bambang Soesatyo, Aziz Syamsuddin and Nudirman Munir from Golkar; Nasir Djamil from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS); Ahmad Yani from the United Development Party (PPP) and Syarifuddin Sudding from the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura).
“We want to summon the President to ask whether or not he knows about the policy and agrees with it,” Ahmad told reporters.
The lawmakers used their interpellation rights to question a policy set by Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin to ban the sentence reductions.
Amir said that the ban on sentence reductions did not violate the 2006 Law on the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, which allows corruption convicts to be paroled or to have their sentences reduced under specific circumstances.
