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State Secretariat official sanctioned for errors in final draft of jobs law
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State Secretariat Minister Pramono speaks at a press conference on Sept. 20, 2019. (Antara/Puspa Perwitasari)
T
he State Secretariat has sanctioned an official responsible for preparing the final draft of the Job Creation Law after legal experts complained that the final document, which was signed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, contained errors.
“The State Secretariat has conducted a series of internal investigations following the discovery [of the errors]. The mistakes were not deliberate and were purely human error,” State Secretariat spokesman Eddy Cahyono Sugiarto said on Wednesday, as reported by kompas.com.
“We have given disciplinary sanctions to the official responsible for preparing the bill before it was handed to the President,” he added.
However, Cahyo did not reveal the identity of the official.
He said the decision to sanction the official was in line with a "zero mistakes" principle endorsed by his office and that the institution would work to prevent similar incidents in the future.
"As a sign of the State Secretariat's serious effort to implement the zero mistakes principle, we'll continuously review and improve our service standards and standard operating procedures for preparing drafts of laws before they are signed by the President," he said.
Read also: ‘Fatal’ errors found as Job Creation Law enters into force
On Monday, the government uploaded a 1,187-page, purportedly final document of Law No. 11/2020 on job creation on the State Secretariat website following the President’s approval of the law. The signing of the law allowed it to come into force nearly a month after it was passed by the House of Representatives on Oct. 5 and following a series of nationwide protests.
However, as legal experts pored over the details of the divisive piece of legislation, many said they had found substantial errors in several articles that could technically void the document – or at least expose serious faults in the legislative procedure.
As several labor unions have filed for a judicial review of the law, the mistakes could provide strong grounds for their legal challenge.
Previously, State Secretary Pratikno brushed off the errors in a statement on Tuesday. He acknowledged certain "technical errors" and said he had reported them to the House secretary general for revision.
"Today we found technical writing errors [...] but they are technical, administrative and won't affect the implementation of the Job Creation Law," Pratikno claimed.
The Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies (PSHK) issued a statement on Tuesday rejecting the dismissal of the mistakes as simple typographical errors.
"The formulation errors are but one type of violation of the principle of clarity in [legal] drafting, as regulated in Article 5(f) of Law No. 12/2011 on the drafting of laws and regulations," the group said. (nal)
