Not The TNI Bill To The Police, The Civil Society Coalition Wants Independent Supervisors To Be Strengthened

JAKARTA - The civil society coalition assesses that the TNI, Polri and the Prosecutor's Office currently need more supervisors than additional authority through the revision of the law.

This was conveyed by the Chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) Julius Hebrew who said that supervision needs to be carried out on the TNI, Polri, and the Prosecutor's Office because they often commit irregularities.

Representing Imparsial, Elsam, HRWG, Walhi, Centra Initiative, Indonesian Women's Coalition, Setara Institute, and BEM SI Kerakyatan, he said the plan to increase the authority was not appropriate if corruption and violence still occurred within the institution.

"What we need right now is to build accountability and transparency by one of the ways to strengthen existing independent institutions to control them," said Julius in his statement, Sunday, February 9.

Julius said there were several examples of cases that indicated the need for supervision of the three institutions. The Attorney General's Office, for example, was shocked by the corruption action of Attorney Pinangki Sirna Malasari who received a bribe of Rp. 8.1 billion from Djoko Tjandra who was a suspect in the Bank Bali corruption case and had been on the run.

Then there were members of the TNI who were also involved in acts of corruption in civilian positions such as the case that dragged the former Head of the National SAR Agency (Kabasarnas) Marsdya Henri Alfiandi.

The last is the case of extorting spectators from the Djakarta Warehouse Project (DWP) concert at JiExpo Kemayoran by members of the National Police.

Not only that, but Julius also highlighted the 2024 Rule of Law Index by the World Justice Project (WJP) which ranked Indonesia 68th or down 0.53 points from the previous year.

This condition makes it necessary to evaluate the surveillance system.

In fact, the government and the DPR are deemed necessary to strengthen external supervisory institutions such as the Judicial Commission, the Prosecutor's Commission, the National Police Commission, Komnas HAM to Komnas Perempuan. Because internal supervision often perpetuates impunity practices.

This external institution is expected to be able to monitor or take action against the misuse of the code of ethics.

"It is necessary to ensure that this external supervisory agency can work effectively, which is equipped with adequate authority and sufficient resources," said Julius.

This step is deemed more important than just increasing the authority through changes to the law.

"We urge the DPR and the government to stop and reject the discussion of the National Police Bill, the Prosecutor's Bill and the TNI Bill," he concluded.