"In practice law enforcement officers are more aggressive than the president. Police are active in making arrest even if the president does not feel being insulted," Jimly said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Former chief justice Jimly Asshiddiqie said that the proposed article on insult of the president is not needed as it is liable to be misused by law enforcement agencies.

Jimly said here on Wednesday that the controversial article would be in practice hampering the process of democratization.

"In practice law enforcement officers are more aggressive than the president. Police are active in making arrest even if the president does not feel being insulted," he said.

He said such article was already ruled as against the constitution by the Constitutional Court (MK) in 2006 after a long debate involving many experts.

MK has decided that article on insult of president was outdated and was no longer in line with the Indonesian democracy based on the 1945 Constitution.

The decision to cancel the article was lauded by the U.N. Human Right Council through "Human Right Report" as it was considered highly progressive.

Jimly said the article is "very feudalistic" used much in the past when kings and queens were seen as state symbols , which is an old theory.

In Indonesia, state symbol is regulated in the state constitution that says that state symbol is Garuda Pancasila, not president, he said.

"Many people are wrong in interpreting the MK decision that the president could be insulted with the cancellation of the article," he said, adding, insulting any one is a crime.

The government has proposed a draft law with 786 articles to the House of Representatives and one of the articles is on insult of the president and vice president.

The article no. 263 point 1 of the draft law reads "anyone publicly insulting the president or vice president is facing a jail term of up to 5 years".

He expressed regret although the MK has cancelled the article, certain group of legal experts had put it in the draft law.

"The draft law was prepared last year . Therefore, dont blame the present government for it," he said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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