G

iven that corruption is still perceived as an ongoing threat to the country, the government’s controversial plan to relax the remission requirements for extraordinary crime convicts has been met with criticism.

As a result of the overcapacity problem faced by many prisons in the country, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly has said that the government will revise Government Regulation (PP) No. 99/2012 on procedures and requirements to make it easier for those convicted of extraordinary crimes — including corruption, terrorism and drug trafficking — to acquire remission.

Under the draft revision, the minister wants to scrap the requirement that convicts must cooperate with law enforcers and become justice collaborators, arguing that such an obligation contravenes a convict’s right to remission.

Law expert Bivitri Susanti, vice chairman of the Indonesian Jentera School of Law (IJSL), said overcapacity should not be a reason to relax the regulation since corruption was still rampant in the country.

She said that prison overcapacity should be minimized through giving more lenient punishments to people convicted of misdemeanors or petty theft.

“To reduce prison overcapacity, the government can also improve the shambolic data used by prison authorities. Many inmates are overstaying in prison,” she added.

Under the current regulations, the government has continuously granted remissions to corruption convicts every year. Recently, on the 71st anniversary of Indonesian independence, disgraced tax official Gayus Halomoan Tambunan and former Democratic Party treasurer Muhammad Nazaruddin were among 128 graft convicts that received sentence cuts.

The minister’s plan to revise PP No. 99/2012 has also been criticized by supporters of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), who claim it would give special treatment to embezzlers of state funds.

Emerson Yuntho, an Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher, said that if the obligation to become a justice collaborator was omitted, then nobody would want to help the KPK to discover other key players in graft schemes. “Why would they help the KPK if they won’t get any benefit from it?” he said.

A staff member at the Presidential Office and former chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), Ifdhal Kasim, said the ministry should increase transparency in assessing remission for convicts.

He suggested the ministry include people other than their own officials in an assessment team to grant remission. “The committee dedicated to assessing and granting remission should not only involve the internal team from the ministry but also those from other elements in society.” (win)