"We call on the House to deliberate the bill on KUHP first before proceeding to discuss the bills on KUHAP, police and prosecutors," National Police Chief Gen Sutarman stated after appointing National Police Deputy Chief Badrodin Haiti at the Police Headquarters here on Tuesday.
The police chief stated that he offered the suggestion in an effort to make regulations harmonious with their procedures. "It cannot be synchronized if the bills on KUHAP and police are discussed first."
He explained that the bill on the KUHP must first be deliberated so that its positive laws are already clearly in place after which their procedures are regulated.
"If the positive law is already in place, then its procedures can be arranged, for example, on how to carry out arrests, summons, investigations and others," he added.
Sutarman explained that the enforcing institutions could then be stipulated by laws on the Police, Prosecutors Office, Supreme Court, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and other law enforcers.
House Speaker Marzuki Alie explained last month that the House of Representatives must continue deliberating on the bills on the Criminal Code (KUHP) and the Criminal Code Procedures (KUHAP) but it must involve the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).
"By involving the KPK and many other parties (such as legal and progressive legal experts), articles which may weaken the KPK in the bills could be scrapped," the DPR Speaker explained here on Sunday.
After a fun-walk with other political party leaders, the House Speaker added that it was very urgent to finish the deliberation over the two bills because the KUHP and KUHAP were already outdated.
"The Netherlands no longer uses laws such as those included in the KUHP and the KUHAP. So, we have to accomplish the deliberation of the bills on the criminal code and the criminal code procedures so that they could be passed into laws," Marzuki Alie elaborated.
He added that the present House members still had five months to discuss the bills before their tenure was over.
There is a suspicion that the bills on the KUHP and those on KUHAP will weaken the KPK. Some quarters were of the view that certain articles in the bills have the potential to weaken the authority of the KPK and eliminate its rights to conduct examinations, investigations and prosecution of (corruption) crime suspects.
Thus, they called on the DPR to postpone deliberations on the bills, as legislators in the House of Representatives are to end their current term. They argued that strategic issues should not be deliberated within a short deadline.
Marzuki Alie explained however that the present House members still had five months to discuss the bills before the legislative election on April 9 and their tenure would be over only in September. The bills should be discussed and endorsed into laws soon.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2014
