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Jakarta Post

House closer to passing controversial KUHP

The conclusion of the controversial, decades-long revision of the Criminal Code (KUHP) seems imminent after House of Representatives members met with a government team at the Fairmont Hotel in Central Jakarta over the weekend to finalize the bill

Karina M. Tehusijarana (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, September 18, 2019

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House closer to passing controversial KUHP

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span>The conclusion of the controversial, decades-long revision of the Criminal Code (KUHP) seems imminent after House of Representatives members met with a government team at the Fairmont Hotel in Central Jakarta over the weekend to finalize the bill. 

The latest draft of the bill, a copy of which was seen by The Jakarta Post, will, among other things, outlaw consensual sex between unmarried persons, restore a ban on insulting the President that had been repealed by the Constitutional Court and forbid two unmarried people from living together “as husband and wife”.

“Regarding the political and legal aspects, the substance of the KUHP bill is complete,” United Development Party (PPP) lawmaker Arsul Sani told reporters on Monday. “All that remains are some editorial questions, which we will leave to the linguists.”

Arsul, a member of the bill’s working committee, denied that the meetings, which were not open to the public and were not announced beforehand, were an attempt to hide from public view. 

“Meetings that should be open are deliberation or debate meetings,” he said. “Do you need to know the placement of the periods and commas and whether we use the word ‘toward’ or ‘over’? That sort of meeting doesn’t need [to be open].”

He added that the meetings were held in a hotel because the House building was not available on weekends.

Fellow working committee member and NasDem Party lawmaker Taufiqulhadi said the new KUHP bill would soon replace the current one, which was adopted almost wholesale from Dutch colonial law.

“Thus, Indonesia’s mission to decolonialize our national criminal law is almost completed,” he said on Monday.

“I call it a decolonialization mission because the codification of this KUHP is part of a process to dismantle or abolish the colonial character.”

However, activists and observers have been less positive about the bill, saying that it still contained many problematic articles that could lead to overcriminalization and discrimination against minorities and other vulnerable groups.

Over 100 protesters from various NGOs, labor groups and university student bodies gathered in front of the House complex in Senayan on Monday carrying signs calling for lawmakers to delay the passing of the bill. 

One sign had President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s slogan “Work, Work, Work” crossed out and the words “Prison, Prison, Prison” next to it. 

The protesters gave speeches behind a set of prison bars to symbolize what they said was the bill’s apparent zeal to imprison people. 

“The KUHP bill [the House] wants to pass is laden with imprisonment,” activist Lini Zurlia said at the demonstration. “If it is passed, it’s not [the House] that will suffer, but the younger generation like me and my friends. How can the House formulate the KUHP without involving those who will be affected.”  

Institute for Criminal Justice and Reform (ICJR) executive director Anggara also condemned the closed meetings about the bill over the weekend, saying that they damaged the people’s sense of trust in the government and the House. 

“The KUHP bill was deliberated without strong legitimacy or transparency, so its passing should be delayed,” he said in a statement on Monday. 

Despite the objections, Arsul said the next step would be to take the bill to a plenary meeting of House Commission III, which oversees legal matters, for approval, after which it would be taken to a plenary meeting of the whole House. 

“Whether it will be at the last plenary meeting of the term [on Sept. 25] or before that is still to be decided,” he said, adding that the bill would never “satisfy all parties”.

Nevertheless, ICJR researcher Maidina Rahmawati said activists still held out hope the bill's passage could be delayed. 

“The bill still needs the approval of the factions before going to the plenary meeting, so right now we’re trying to approach the party faction heads,” she told the Post. “We’re also trying to see if we can get access to the law and human rights minister because he hasn’t signed the bill yet.”

However, she said their best hope lay in pointing out technical errors and contradictions. “Reopening discussion on the substance [of the bill] seems impossible now.”

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