Ombudsman Finds Alleged Police Maladministration Handling Protesters On Secured Job Creation Law

WHILE. Ombudsman

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Ombudsman Representative of Greater Jakarta found two suspicions of maladministration by the police when securing participants in a demonstration against the Job Creation Law which ended in chaos.

These findings are based on the results of unannounced Ombudsman inspections of police offices. The findings were the police statement that they did not want to issue SKCKs to students who took part in the action and did not provide access to legal assistance to the secured demonstrators.

"We carried out two monitoring, related to handling demonstrations in the field and handling post-demos. There are two allegations, namely not giving access to legal advisors and exceeding authority when not giving SKCKs to students participating in demonstrations," Teguh told VOI, Wednesday, 21 October.

Teguh found that there were two Polres under Polda Metro Jaya that said they would not provide SKCKs for students involved in the demonstration against the Omnibus Law, namely the Tangerang Metro Police and the Depok Metro Police.

In fact, according to Teguh, the provision of SKCK is part of the public service carried out by the National Police in accordance with the Chief of Police Regulation Number 18 of 2014 concerning the procedures for issuing SKCK.

"SKCK is a record against someone who has committed an act against the law or is in the judicial process. So, students who are not proven guilty either in the judicial process or during the trial period have difficulties issuing their SKCK," Teguh said.

Dock. Ombudsman

Moreover, with the attitude of the police that do not provide SKCK with the aim of making it difficult for students to get a job, it is called the Ombudsman for depriving citizens of their rights to work.

"So, if there are students, either currently or in the future, it is difficult to obtain SKCK or are specially marked as rioters, please report to the Ombudsman Representative of Greater Jakarta," he said.

In addition, the Ombudsman also found allegations of maladministration by not being given access to lawyers to assist the suspects.

"We also found that Polda Metro Jaya did not provide access for assistants or legal advisers to the 43 people being investigated, despite receiving legal assistance from advisors provided by Polda Metro Jaya," Teguh said.

Dock. Ombudsman

Supposedly, he said, the demonstrators who were secured had the freedom to choose their own lawyers and for this it was necessary to open access to lawyers or other civil society groups to provide assistance.

"With this openness, it becomes clear whether there is really a third party who finances, or this is the emotion of the masses on the ground, or an organized mass with a specific purpose. This is to erode prejudices that develop in society," he added.