Attorney General Burhanuddin Does Not Accept The Semanggi Incident Of Human Rights Violations: We Have To Appeal

JAKARTA - The Attorney General's Office (Kejagung) will file an appeal regarding the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN) decision which states that Attorney General ST Burhanuddin has violated the law for calling the Semanggi I and Semanggi II incidents not serious human rights violations.

Junior Attorney General for Civil and State Administration (Jamdatun) at the AGO Ferry Wibisono said the files for appeals had been prepared and were currently in the final stage of completion.

"We have to file this objection for 14 days. We have finalized it and just need to tidy up and the memory of the appeal within a predetermined period of time will be sent to the high state administrative court," Ferry told reporters, Thursday, November 5.

Ferry said the decision to file an appeal was because the AGO judged the PTUN judge to have made a mistake. One of them is the question of no regulation being violated by the Attorney General

"Which regulations were violated in the substance. But the judge did not indicate which articles were violated in the verdict because there were no rules that were violated," he said.

"So the judge formulated based on conviction alone without adequate evidence and then neglected to carry out his obligations and made incorrect judgments regarding which legal actions the Attorney General violated," he continued.

In fact, Ferry also offended the plaintiff who was deemed not meeting the requirements of interest in filing a lawsuit with the PTUN. This is because the victim's parents as the plaintiffs have no interest in answering the Attorney General's statement at the DPR RI Working Meeting.

"The interest of the plaintiff (the victim's parents) is in the handling of serious human rights cases. Not in the answer process at the DPR RI working meeting," he said.

Previously, Ferry also mentioned the mistake made by the PTUN judges regarding the Attorney General's statement which was considered a concrete action by the government.

In fact, the statement was only the delivery of information during a joint working meeting with members of Commission III of the DPR RI.

"The statement made by the Attorney General in the Commission III meeting was the provision of information, not an act of government administration," Ferry told reporters, Thursday, November 5.

Especially when referring to the Supreme Court Regulation (Perma) number 2 article 1 number 1 of 2019 concerning government administration, the Attorney General's statement is not a concrete act.

Supposedly, the violation occurred if the Attorney General took actions related to handling cases, processing case handling, stages including P19 or P21 case files.

The Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN) stated that Attorney General ST Burhanuddin lost the lawsuit in court. The Attorney General is called against the law because he calls the Semanggi I and Semanggi II incidents not serious human rights violations.

This is referred to in the lawsuit decision filed by Sumarsih, the mother of one of the victims of the 1998 tragedy. Sumarsih as the plaintiff and the Attorney General as the defendant. This means that the PTUN Jakarta won Sumarsih's lawsuit.

"On trial, it states that the defendants 'exceptions are not accepted. The main case is that the plaintiffs' claim is completely granted," said Chief Judge Andi Muh Ali Rahman, who was seen on the official website of the Supreme Court Decision Directory, Wednesday, November 4.

The PTUN judge stated Burhanuddin's remarks at the Working Meeting between Commission III of the DPR and the Attorney General on January 16, 2020, which stated that the Semanggi I and Semanggi II incidents were not serious human rights violations, were acts against the law by government bodies and / or officials.

In addition, it also requires the Attorney General to make a statement regarding the handling of alleged serious human rights violations in Semanggi I and II according to the actual situation. In addition, the judge also sentenced the defendant to pay a court fee of Rp. 285,000.

This problem started when ST Burhanuddin held a DPR working meeting last January. During the meeting he mentioned that the shooting cases of students known as Semanggi I and II 1998 were not serious human rights violations.

"The Semanggi I incident, Semanggi II, resulted in the results of the DPR RI Plenary Meeting which stated that the incident was not a serious human rights violation," said Burhanuddin.

However, Burhanuddin did not elaborate on when the DPR plenary meeting he meant to be held. The reason for the incomplete handling of gross human rights is the incomplete files compiled by Komnas HAM investigators.

"The cause of the incompleteness of the file is due to several things, namely the investigator only fulfills some of the results of the investigation, there is insufficient evidence that the research result is unable to clearly identify the alleged perpetrator of the violation," he explained.