If granted, Nuril, a West Nusa Tenggara woman sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for defaming her alleged sexual abuser, will be the first nonpolitical convict to receive a pardon in the country’s history.

House Deputy Speaker Agus Hermanto notified lawmakers of Jokowi’s letter at a plenary meeting on Tuesday morning, and the letter was discussed by the House’s consultative body in the afternoon. In the letter, which Jokowi sent to the House on Monday, the President asked for the House’s approval to grant Nuril clemency.

Article 14 of the 1945 Constitution states that the President must “take into account the House of Representatives’ consideration” when granting a pardon.

“The punishment imposed on Baiq Nuril Maknun has elicited widespread sympathy and solidarity from the public, who feel that [her] conviction contradicts the public’s sense of justice,” Jokowi wrote in his letter.

“Given that no legal options remain that could be pursued through the judicial process, we request the willingness of the House of Representatives [to consider] the plan to pardon Baiq Nuril Maknun, as stipulated in Article 14 Clause 2 of the 1945 Constitution,” he continued.

A pardon, which removes all legal consequences from someone convicted of a crime, is only very loosely regulated in Indonesian law and mentioned only in Article 14.

In the past, presidents have granted amnesty to political prisoners and surrendering rebel group members.

Former president Sukarno, for instance, granted a general amnesty to “all people who committed a crime before Dec. 27, 1949 as a result of the political conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands”. Sukarno also later granted amnesty to people connected to the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI) and People’s Universal Struggle (Permesta) rebel movements in exchange for their pledges of loyalty to the government.

In 1977, then-president Soeharto granted amnesty to members of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) under similar conditions.

Following the fall of the New Order regime in 1998, former presidents Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid granted amnesty to dozens of political detainees imprisoned for prodemocracy activism. Meanwhile, former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono granted a general amnesty to former members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) after a peace treaty with the group in 2005.

Jentera School of Law constitutional law expert Bivitri Susanti said that, while it was true that amnesty had been given to political prisoners in the past, there was no law or regulation limiting it to that usage.

“I think it is a misperception that amnesty is only for political crimes. The criteria for amnesty should be what is in the national interest,” she told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday. “In Nuril’s case, it is in the national interest for the state to affirm its commitment to eradicating sexual violence.”

The Supreme Court declared Nuril guilty of circulating a recording of an allegedly lewd phone call between her and Muslim, the then-principal of SMA 7 state senior high school in Mataram, where she was employed. Her appeal against the sentence of six months of imprisonment and a fine of Rp 500 million (US$35,850) was rejected earlier this month, leaving a presidential pardon as her only legal recourse.

The House consultative body has ordered Commission III, which oversees legal matters, to deliberate the President’s request, and House Speaker Bambang Soesatyo said he hoped a recommendation would be finalized at the next plenary meeting on July 26.

“We will try to finish [the process] this week, because we are all on the same wavelength,” he said on Tuesday. “This is about humanity, and we must finish and complete [the pardon].”

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