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Constitutional Court conducted a trial on Act No. 26 Year 2000 on Human Rights Trial (Act on Human Rights Trial) towards the 1945 Constitution, Monday (14/1), for the case No. 18/PUU-V/2007 filed by Eurico Guterres with the Legal Counsel, M. Mahendradatta, S.H., M.A., M.H., PhD. The trial was scheduled to hear the information from National Commission for Human Rights and experts from the Petitioner.
The Petitioner demanded the Court to examine Article 43 paragraph (2) Act on Human Rights towards the 1945 Constitution which stated: Ad Hoc Human Rights Trial as mentioned in paragraph (1) was formed based on the initiative from the People Representative Board Republic of Indonesia based on certain incident by the President Decree.
In the explanation it stated: In term that the People Representative Board Republic of Indonesia initiate forming of Ad Hoc Human Rights Trial, People Representative Board Republic of Indonesia based the suspicion on the existence of heavy violation of human rights limited to the locus amd tempus delicti happened before the existence of the regulation.
In the trial, expert from the Petitioners, Prof. Dr. M. Arif Amrullah, S.H., M.Hum concluded that the Parliament’s interference in proposing an Ad Hoc Human Rights Trial had created unsynchronisation in the criminal trial system because the Parliament as a political institution that principally never had an authority for investigation. ”Besides that, it was also awkward when the Ad Hoc Human Rights Trial only formed based on President’s Decree when according to the Article 24 Paragraph (3) 1945 Constitution, the justice was formed based on law” explained the lecturer of Criminal Trial System in Jember University.
Responding to the question from the Legal Counsel of the Petitioner whether or not Constitutional Court to be the synchronisation institution for criminal trial system, Experts answered that based on cost and benefit principles, the Constitutional Court could have that role because if it had to wait for the role of the Parliament then we had to wait much longer because there were still a lot of Draft of Bill workload that hadn’t been approved by them.
The trial actually scheduled to hear the information from the National Commission on Human Rights, however the Head of the National Commission, Ifdhal Kasim sent a letter to the Constitutional Court telling that he was ill so that in that occassion his information could not be heard. The next trial is scheduled for Verdicts Reading. Before that, the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court gave some time for all parties to submit their written conclution. (Wiwik Budi Wasito/Yogi Djatnika)

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