PPP Wants Article On Insult To The President To Remain In The Draft Criminal Code, But The Formulation Has Been Changed

JAKARTA - The chairman of the PPP faction of the DPR RI, Arsul Sani, believes that Articles 218 and 219 regarding attacks on the honor or dignity of the President and Vice President in the Draft Criminal Code (RKUHP) do not need to be abolished.

The member of Commission III of the House of Representatives said that according to legal benchmarks, state crimes against state leaders are still subject to sanctions. Even in democracies.

"We also need to do benchmarking on lese majesty regarding laws related to attacks against power holders, especially heads of state. How about in other countries? Judging from the benchmarking I did, I see that there are so many countries whose democracy like ours has even longer democratic traditions. We also maintain lese majesty," said Arsul at a working meeting with Menkumham Yasonna Laoly at the DPR Building, Wednesday, June 9.

For example, he continued, Article 115 of the Danish Penal Code carries a criminal penalty of up to 4 years. Then article 101 of the Icelandic Criminal Code, the threat is also 4 years.

"In Belgium it is not in the Criminal Code, but there is a law from 1847 that insults the head of state, where the king is punishable by up to 3 years," he said.

Meanwhile, the only thing that shifted decriminalization from a criminal approach to a civil approach was France in 2013. Meanwhile, Germany, in 2017 only decriminalized insults to foreign countries, but the head of state himself still maintains criminalization between 3 months to 5 years.

"I haven't studied the Netherlands, haven't read the book of laws, but from what I know, they are still being punished. This means that it is natural that in our Criminal Code, based on benchmarking, articles on insults to the president and vice president are maintained," explained Arsul.

Indonesia's challenge, said the deputy chairman of the MPR, is how the Criminal Code does not conflict with the decision of the Constitutional Court. So in the last period in an effort not to crash, three things had to be done. First, the nature of the offense is changed from an ordinary offense to a complaint offense.

"Secondly, what is the exception in the next paragraph which is not an attack in the context of criticism of public policy and self-defense?,"

Third, in order to avoid potential arbitrariness of law enforcement, the sentence must be reduced to less than 5 years.

"So that the Police cannot immediately arrest and take them away, we are still responding to public concerns, as stated by Mr. Habiburrokhman. So there needs to be another explanation for articles 218 and 2019 of the Criminal Code," he explained.

Previously, Gerindra politician Habiburrokhman said that the article on insulting the president was considered to suppress those who were opposed to the authorities.

"So in my opinion, this article still needs to be defended but it must be formulated in a good, careful manner, which covers the potential for misuse to a minimum," said Arsul Sani.