On Tuesday, 5 May 2009, the Indonesian Constitutional Court passed a verdict which refused to cancel Article 27 Paragraph 3 of the Information & Electronic Transaction Law (ITE) No. 11 Year 2008 that has been requested by a Team consisting of Edy Cahyono, Nenda I. Fadhilah, Amrie Hakim, Indonesian Journalists Alliance (AJI), LBH Press & PBHI.
In a Press Release that I downloaded from the legal blog Dunia Anggara, the Team expressed its disappointment with the said rejection; however it also mentioned some points in the verdict which are noteworthy:
1) Art.27 (3) : is for crime that can only be processed based on complaint made by victim of defamation
2) Art.27 (3) : should be deemed similar to Art. 310 & 311 of the Penal Code, thus only the main Role Player can be implicated with this crime
3) Art.27 (3) : can only be used by individuals and not by legal entity
4) Art.27 (3) : acknowledged that blogs and bloggers have similar role as the press i.e. implementing people’s sovereignty based on principles of democracy, justice & legal supremacy
5) As far as public domain is concerned, and privacy is not disturbed, cyber communities are free to conduct social control.
In this regards, I would like to quote fellow blogger Ndoro Kakung who said that this verdict provide an advantage for bloggers in Indonesia compared to bloggers in Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar.
However, as a citizen of our country we must use this advantage responsibly i.e. by respecting other people's privacy as well as the laws, regulations & customs/ traditions, so that peace and harmony in our society can be maintained.
2 comments:
GREAT ARTICLE DO THAT NOT HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH OR WRITINGS THERE???
@Jessep:
There have been reports of official actions against bloggers in Malaysia & Singapore. While in Myanmar is an military authoritarian state.
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