As A Suspect In The COVID-19 Funeral Honor Cut Case, The Jember Regent's Expert Staff Submits Pretrial

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

JEMBER - Expert staff of the Regent of Jember M. Djamil who was named a suspect in the case of cutting the funeral honorarium for COVID-19 Jember submitted a pretrial application to the Jember District Court, East Java.

"We filed a pretrial lawsuit regarding the invalidity of our client M. Djamil's determination of the suspect," said M. Djamil's attorney, P. Juliatmoko, as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, August 3.

According to him, the decision of the Constitutional Court No. 21/PUU-XII/2014 adds the object of pretrial in the provisions of Article 77 of the Criminal Procedure Code, so that the object of pretrial is expanded to include whether or not the determination of a suspect is legal, whether or not a search is legal and whether or not a confiscation is legal.

"The determination of the suspect must be based on at least two pieces of evidence as contained in Article 184 of the Criminal Procedure Code and accompanied by an examination of the prospective suspect," he said.

He said the determination of a suspect to a person is closely related to the feasibility and tranquility of a person's right to a comfortable life and related to their human rights.

"On that basis, we submitted a pretrial lawsuit to the Jember District Court, so that the examination process at the Jember Police must be rescheduled after the final decision of the pretrial single judge at the local District Court," he said.

Juliatmoko explained that his client's capacity as Acting Head of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) at that time was regulated in Permendagri no. 77 of 2020 Chapter V for the administration of Unexpected Expenditure (BTT) financial management.

"We also denied that our client agreed at the meeting to cut the funeral staff's salary because in fact there was no such meeting," he said.

According to him, the existing meeting was a matter of directives from superiors as the Acting Head of BPBD so that staff and officials carry out their duties according to their main tasks and functions in a humanitarian atmosphere because Jember was currently experiencing the peak of COVID-19 cases in June-July 2021.

Previously, the Jember Police appointed an expert staff of the Jember Regent M. Djamil as a suspect in the COVID-19 funeral honors case in Jember Regency.

When summoned as a suspect on Friday (29/7), M. Djamil was absent from the investigator's summons and was scheduled to be summoned again on August 3, 2022, but he was also absent because he filed a pretrial lawsuit for the case.