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Chief Justice Anwar Usman speaking at a book review organized by Widyagama University of Malang in collaboration with publishing company Raja Grafindo Persada, Friday (11/12/2020). Photo by Humas MK/Hendy.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Reform era was a new hope for independent judiciary free from government intervention. It was then contained in a provision that emphasizes independent judiciary and separation of the judicial and legislative functions. The judicial power is then exercised by the Supreme Court and the courts under it as well as by the Constitutional Court, said Chief Justice Anwar Usman at a book review organized by Widyagama University of Malang in collaboration with publishing company Raja Grafindo Persada, Friday, December 11, 2020.

Delivering a presentation on "The Independence of the Indonesian Judiciary," he urged the participants to think about the efforts to create and strengthen the judicial power that is independent and free from intervention. He said that the issuance of Law No. 14 of 1970 had resulted in the loss of the president's explicit intervention in the judicial authority. Subsequently, changes were made to this law in 1999 through Law No. 35 of 1999, then Law No. 4 of 2004 on the Judicial Power. During the Reform era, based on the amended Article 24 paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution, it was emphasized that the Constitutional Court has four authorities and one obligation. This, Justice Anwar added, gave the people a new hope for the enforcement of the law. He recalled that during the early days of the Constitutional Court’s inception, the people had had new hopes for the return of justice.

“Judicial independence is an absolute guarantee to democracy and a law-based state,” he said alongside researcher Nallom Kurniawan, who also spoke at the event, who was moderated by the head of Widyagama University’s Law Program Zulkarnain. Widyagama University’s postgraduate program law lecturer Lukman Hakim and law lecturers of Pancasila University’s (Jakarta) postgraduate program law lecturers also attended the event.

Justice Anwar also stated that judicial independence is also recognized in many countries. It is also included in Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads, “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal….” In Indonesia, the judiciary is also free from intervention within and outside of the judiciary, except Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution.

Justice Anwar said of his book entitled “The Judicial Power Post-Amendment of the 1945 Constitution” that it talks about the efforts in maintaining the independence and impartiality of the judiciary according to the Constitution. Indonesia’s ideals of a law-based state can be realized through the judicial power that is in line with constitutional values.

Evaluation of the Criminal Procedure Code

Next, researcher Nallom Kurniawan talked about his book “The Determination of Suspects and PreTrial and Comparison in Nine Countries.” He said that his book was based on the principle of humanity, which is a philosophical foundation to Indonesia since the independence, as contained in the second precept of Pancasila.

Nallom observed that development in all areas, including the law, is inseparable from the values of the second precept because it relates to protection of human dignity. One concrete example of this is Law No. 8 of 1981 on the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP), which contains the pretrial mechanism. He had conducted an in-depth study where he compared the implementation of this norm to that of similar norms in other countries.

He believes that if the Criminal Procedure Code was changed, several things must be evaluated as to keep it in line with the citizens’ constitutional rights, such as the time limit for the suspect status, the protection of suspect's rights in a criminal investigation, and the legal mechanism of an investigation process against the object of a case and the same suspect in a criminal case.

The book review was followed by responses from several respondents and a Q&A sessions for the participants who joined the event online and offline. 

Writer: Sri Pujianti 
Editor: Lulu Anjarsari
Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 12/15/2020 19:21 WIB

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian version, the Indonesian version will prevail.

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