T

he most valuable legacy of the current administration related to military reform could be a new law that enables active soldiers to stand trial in civil courts on criminal charges.

If the House of Representatives passes the revision of Law No. 26/1997 on military discipline and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono enacts it into law before his term of office ends on Oct. 21, the nation will certainly be taking a giant step forward in bringing to an end once and for all the impunity enjoyed by military members.

Hope abounds for this to become reality after the House agreed in a plenary session on Tuesday to deliberate a draft bill on the revision of the Military Discipline Law, the last bastion for the Indonesian Military (TNI) to evade equality before the law.

It took the House more than 15 years to finally reach a common understanding that military reform would remain unfinished without overhauling the criminal justice system that applies exclusively to soldiers. Characteristically known for their lack of transparency, military courts have been widely perceived as legal institutions that protect rather than punish soldiers guilty of crimes.

During the New Order era, when the military ruled the roost, military tribunals more often than not acquitted or handed down light sentence to soldiers. Even retired military personnel could easily escape prosecution because the Indonesian military commander objected to them being subjected to any legal proceedings.

After the 1998 reform movement, the debate over whether active soldiers charged with committing ordinary crimes should be taken to civil or military court has never been settled, obviously due to the TNI'€™s opposition.

Law No. 4/2004 on the Supreme Court stipulates that military courts are under the auspices of the Supreme Court, but the TNI insists on trying its own personnel, citing technical skills that elude civilian judges.

In certain cases, particularly those that grab public attention nationwide such as an attack by commandos on a prison in Yogyakarta in 2013, military courts are accessible to the public. But without mounting public pressure, expecting military tribunals to run in a transparent way would be far from realistic.

The Yogyakarta Military Court sentenced 11 Army'€™s Special Forces (Kopassus) soldiers to up to 11 years in prison and dishonorably discharged three of them immediately for killing four detainees. Many, however, felt that justice had not been adequately delivered as the whole legal process of the case was focused on revenge and esprit de corps being the prime motives of the murders, without the courage to think out of the box.

A proper justice system for people with access to lethal weapons like soldiers is imperative so as to deter them from misusing or abusing their positions. Military reform was initiated with the aim to restore TNI'€™s basic duty as the defender of the state and transform it into a professional and modern force. Revision of the Military Discipline Law now puts TNI'€™s compliance with reform to the test.