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Indonesian legal aid, activist call for new legal process for Mary Jane
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Philippine national Mary Jane Veloso (second left, front line) poses for a photograph during an arts event at the Yogyakarta correctional facility on Nov. 9, 2015. ( trinunnews.com / Hasan Sakri Ghozali )
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ndonesia should initiate a new legal process for Filipino death-row inmate Mary Jane Veloso after the Philippines declared her a victim of human trafficking, the Jakarta-based Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat) has said.
"Even though the Philippines declared Mary a victim of trafficking, the ruling has yet to be applied in Indonesia and there should be a new legal process to assert her victim status," LBH Masyarakat director Ricky Gunawan said in Jakarta on Friday.
However, he doubts that the Attorney General's Office (AGO) will set in motion a new legal process to accommodate the judgment from the Philippines because the institution has already accepted the death-penalty ruling of the Supreme Court.
The AGO will probably cling to the nation's legal positivism instead of probing into Mary's case to find out the facts behind her trafficking, Ricky said.
Meanwhile, Daniel Awigra of the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) said Mary's case was a chance for President Joko Widodo and his administration to start unraveling the syndicates who used people like Mary to run their illicit businesses.
Daniel expects that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's visit to Jakarta will inaugurate a new beginning in the war waged by Indonesia and the Philippines against drug networks. (ags)
