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egal experts have asked the Constitutional Court (MK) to provide a clearer definition for an act of treason in the Criminal Code (KUHP), arguing that current articles related to treason could be open for interpretation, which may pose a risk to civil liberty and freedom of speech.

The experts, presented as expert witnesses by the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), laid out their arguments before Constitutional Court justices on the third hearing of the judicial review of the case on Tuesday.

ICJR filed a request in December 2016 to review a set of provisions on treason in the KUHP following arrests of 11 people on treason charges in the same month.

In their arguments, the experts pointed out that the six KUHP articles that mention the word “treason” — articles 87, 104, 106, 107, 139(a), 139(b) and 140 — did not provide legal certainty and could, therefore, potentially be used to criminalize people.

The KUHP, which was based on the Dutch penal code, does not provide a definition of “treason.” The term was in fact derived from the Dutch word aanslag, which means “attack.”

The experts further argued that an act could only be defined as “treason” when it comprised the elements of intention and “initial conduct” to topple a legitimate government with violence.

“‘Initial conduct’ means the act already has the potential to topple a government. It includes massive efforts such as buying weapons and mobilizing people to assassinate the president,” Ahmad Sofyan, a legal expert from Bina Nusantara University, told the court.

Authorities should not be able to charge someone with treason for openly criticizing or opposing the government, because these are not violent acts, but rather, exercise the right to political expression, he added.

An ICJR study on several Supreme Court rulings on cases of treason found that suspects were convicted of treason for expressing their political views and prosecutors had failed to explain whether the suspects had categorically committed treason.

Samuel Waileruny, for instance, was convicted of conspiracy to commit treason and sentenced to three years in prison in 2007 for raising the flag of the South Maluku Republic (RMS). In his indictment, prosecutors claimed that Samuel had intended to “secede” South Maluku from Indonesia.

Sri Wiyanti Eddyono, a legal expert from the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) School of Law, argued that the unclear definition of treason had allowed past Indonesian regimes to implement the provisions differently.

During the Old Order government of former president Sukarno, the treason charges were used against persons who attempted to assassinate Sukarno and those who launched armed mutinies, such as the Darul Islam/Indonesian Islamic Armed Forces (DI/TII) uprising and the South Maluku Republic (RMS) separatist movement, she said.