Feri Amsari as legal counsel together with the principal applicants attending the petition revision hearing of the judicial review of Law Number 8 of 2010 on the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering, Thursday (5/10) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

The Constitutional Court (MK) held a second hearing to improve the petition of the judicial review of Law No. 8/2010 on the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering. Legal counsel Feri Amsari presented a number of improvements for Case No. 74/PUU-XVI/2018. 

"The suggestions in the previous hearing are that there are several things that needed to be added to strengthen the legal standing in this case. We have included that two representatives representing legal entities have been included in the articles of association/bylaws in that indeed the chairperson of each institution has the right to represent [the institutions] externally and internally," Feri said before the panel of justices led by Constitutional Justice Suhartoyo. 

The Petitioner also requested that not only one case be an example. "We have added a case on the Food Law; we have included it in the petition. Then we also requested that the Petitioners state why there is a reason that the letter Z stipulates criminal offenses are sanctioned with imprisonment for 4 years and above. Like last week, we mentioned that the 4 year [imprisonment] is due to a convention of transnational organized crimes. So, the convention of transnational crimes states that serious crimes are [sanctioned with imprisonment for] 4 years and above," Feri explained. 

According to the Petitioners, money laundering is not only related to the serious crimes regulated in [laws on] transnational organized crimes. However, it is also possibly related to cases where the criminal acts are not classified as serious crimes. 

"We also quoted that the discussion or debate on the above 4 years [imprisonment] is contained in memorie van toelichting discussion of the Bill on the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering. We quoted it here so that we can trace [why certain] criminal acts are sanctioned with 4 years or more. However, we also explained that there are other cases [sanctioned] under 4 years that are potentially money laundering crimes but were not followed up properly," he argued.

The Indonesian Anti-Money Laundering Institute (LAPI), Auriga Nusantara Foundation, Charles Simabura, Oce Madril, and Abdul Ficar Hadjar as Petitioners review Article 2 paragraph (1) letter z and the Elucidation to Article 74 of Law No. 8/2010 on the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering. 

One article and one elucidation of Law No. 8, according to the Petitioners, contradict the 1945 Constitution for several reasons. First, the conflict arises because in Article 33 paragraph (4) of the 1945 Constitution, it is stated that the national economy is organized on the basis of economic democracy upholding the principles of togetherness, efficiency with fairness, sustainability, environmental insight, self-sufficiency, and by keeping balance in the progress and unity of national economy. 

The Petitioner claimed that actually money laundering based on the general elucidation to Law No. 8 is a criminal act that threatens the stability and integrity of the economic and financial systems. In this context, Article 2 paragraph (1) letter z and the elucidation to Article 74 cause the efforts to eradicate money laundering to not be optimal. (Nano Tresna Arfana/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)