-4-
III.
Introduction Komnas HAM‘s Comment on the List of Issues to be
Considered during the Examination of the Second Periodic Report of
INDONESIA (CAT/C/IDN/Q/2), February 2008):
Article 1 (Comment on List of Issue 1 and 2)
6.
Komnas HAM notes that an effort has been done to amend the law of the Criminal
Code that prohibits torture as stated in CAT. This process, however has been going very
slowly. It should be noted the Law Number 39/1999 concerning Human Rights contains a
provision on torture, Its definition of torture conforms to CAT. Article 1 (4) states
“[t]orture means all deliberate acts that cause deep pain and suffering, both physical or
emotional, inflicted on an individual person to obtain information or knowledge from that
person or from a third party, by punishing an individual for an act carried out or
suspected to have been carried out by an individual or third party, or by threatening or
coercing an individual or third party, or for reasons based on discriminative
considerations, should this pain or suffering arise as a result of provocation by, with the
approval of, or with the knowledge of any person or public official whosoever”. Article 4
of the Law Number 39/1999 states that torture is non-derogable rights. Nevertheless, the
Law does not provide any effective mechanism of enforcement dealing with individual
complaint.
7.
As mentioned in paragraf 3 of this submission, Komnas HAM does have statutory
function to monitor the implementation of human rights including the right not to be
tortured. Nevertheless, this function has a limitation. In dealing with individual complaint,
including complaint on torture, Komnas HAM is only mandated to make a
recommendation to institution concerned (such as the police) without any legal power to
force the institution concerned to implement the recommendation.
8.
The Law 26/2000 on Human Rights Court contains a provision on torture (Article 9
of the Law Number 26/2000). The definition of torture in this provision conforms to CAT.
This provision, however, states that torture is a part of ‘crimes against humanity’, which
should be perpetrated systematically or widespread as part of attack directed against any
civilian.
9.
The Law 26/2000 states that Komnas HAM is the only institution to conduct the
inquiry on the alleged cases of crimes against humanity. 1 Up to the writing of this
1
Under the Law 26/2000, the Human Rights Court has jurisdiction on crimes which are crimes against
humanity and genocide.