Perppu Economic Criminal Law Discussed by the Attorney General's Office is Considered Potentially Abuse of Power

JAKARTA - The Attorney General's Office (Kejagung) is said to be secretly drafting a Government Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perppu) on Eradication of Economic Crimes and Economic Recovery. The Civil Society Coalition gave a spotlight because this policy is considered to be of no urgency and has the potential for abuse of power.

"We assess that the efforts of the Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia to design this Perppu are not based on constitutional reasons, especially in terms of urgency," said representative of the Coalition of Civil Society, Julius Ibrani in a written statement quoted on Monday, March 16.

Julius said that his statement was based on Article 22 paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution. "It is appropriate for the government in this case the president to explain to the public about this plan," he said.

"The government must immediately explain the economic situation caused by the massive economic crimes committed by business actors, or maybe the government has other intentions in mind to use this RPerppu other than the purpose of eradicating economic crimes and economic recovery which will actually cause unrest and economic climate chaos in Indonesia," he continued.

Meanwhile, the Director of Imparsial, Ardi Manto Adiputra, who is also part of the coalition, revealed that the draft Perppu provided the basis for the formation of the Economic Crime Handling Task Force. Then there are a number of weaknesses, including the lack of a reason to separate economic crimes as crimes outside the Criminal Code.

"We also see that there are a number of weaknesses in the RPerppu such as combining economic crimes and saving the country's economy as two unrelated things. The RPerppu only provides a definition that arbitrarily adopts the provisions of Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution," he said.

"Another uncertainty is the identification of criminal acts from various laws that are categorized as economic crimes without clear arguments that their implementation will be feared to touch various criminal acts that may not be related to the country's economy," continued Ardi.

In addition, there is no specific explanation about what kind of economic crime can be done by the task force formed through the Perppu.

"So it is impressive that all criminal acts regulated in the law that are qualified as economic crimes, are handled by the Task Force. This is different, for example, in the context of corruption, there is a gradation that distinguishes the handling of the Police, Prosecutor's Office, and KPK," he said.

Ardi also highlighted other weaknesses such as the task force should be technical and ad hoc, which is part of the main unit that has a special mandate.

"The scope of authority regulated in the RPerppu is also not accompanied by clear supervision arrangements, as well as checks and balances through the legal mechanism of the event, which makes this RPerppu has the potential to create practices of abuse of authority or abuse of power."

This condition is what makes the Civil Society Coalition urge the government, namely President Prabowo Subianto through the Attorney General's Office to abandon the intention to issue the RPerppu Eradication of Economic Crimes and Economic Recovery.

"The weak internal supervision and limited authority of the Indonesian Attorney General's Commission as an external supervisor and the absence of parliamentary oversight add to the risk of abuse of authority," said Ardi.

"With these things, we urge the government, in this case the President, the Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia, to immediately cancel the plan to issue the RPerppu, which will instead endanger the country's economy and foster the practice of abuse of authority by the prosecutor's office," he concluded.