Jokowi Asks To Be Completed Quickly, DPR Admits It Has Not Received Draft Bill On Asset Confiscation From The Government

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) asked the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs to accelerate the Law (RUU) on Asset Confiscation. However, Member of Commission III of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Taufik Basari, admitted that until now he had not received the draft bill.

He said that the hot ball to roll out the discussion of the Draft Law (RUU) on the Confiscation of Criminal Assets was in the Government.

"Currently the ball is still in the government with the stages of drafting the bill. After submitting it to the DPR, it will enter the next stage, namely the discussion of the bill. As long as it has not been submitted, the DPR cannot yet discuss it," said Taufik, quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, April 26.

This, he said, was because the status of the Bill on the Confiscation of Criminal Assets was a bill proposed by the Government initiative.

"As a proposer, it is the Government that proposes that the bill be included in the National Legislation Program and when it will be proposed to be included in the Annual Priority Prolegnas," he said.

He said that the Government as the proposer of the Bill on the Confiscation of Criminal Assets also controls when to prepare and complete the academic paper and draft Bill on the Confiscation of Criminal Assets. "And when to hand it over to the DPR," he added.

For this reason, Taufik admitted that he regretted the false narrative circulating in the public that the DPR seemed to hinder or reject the discussion of the Bill on the Confiscation of Criminal Assets.

"The public, including netizens (citizens), have the right to receive correct information because it is a constitutional right. Therefore, the government has a constitutional obligation to correct this misunderstanding and not to allow the public, including netizens, to continue to get misinformation," he said.

Because, he continued, the DPR has never rejected the Bill on the Confiscation of Criminal Assets. This, he added, could be proven when the Government proposed that the bill be included in the long and medium-term Prolegnas at the end of December 2019 and the DPR never objected to anything.

Likewise, he said again, when the Government submitted a Bill on the Confiscation of Criminal Assets into the 2023 Priority Prolegnas at the end of 2022, there were also no objections or objections from the DPR.

"The entire process of submitting the bill in the discussion of Prolegnas went smoothly and there was even no debate at all," he explained.

Previously, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menkopolhukam) Mahfud MD conveyed that the Draft Law (RUU) on Asset Confiscation was immediately sent to the DPR according to President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi) instructions so that the process could be accelerated.

Mahfud MD said that he, together with ministers and heads of institutions from the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, the Ministry of Finance, the Attorney General's Office, the National Police, the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK), had balanced the script for the Asset Confiscation Bill.

"Earlier, the meeting tidied up technical and editorial issues, which will not affect the substantive material that was pre-pared by the official," said Mahfud MD last Friday, April 14.