QUO VADIS GRASI CORBY?

Pan Mohamad Faiz*

Keputusan Pemerintah memberikan grasi kepada narapidana narkotika terus menuai kontroversi. Pasalnya, selain kali pertama dilakukan dalam sejarah reformasi dan semangat pemberantasan narkotika, grasi ini diberikan kepada para terpidana narkotika dari berbagai negara. Salah satunya untuk Schapelle Corby, terpidana kejahatan narkotika asal Australia.

Tak pelak, respons dan kritik tajam mengalir deras dari berbagai pihak, khususnya terhadap Kementerian Hukum dan HAM. Komitmen pemerintah dalam memerangi narkotika menjadi dipertanyakan. Kebijakan ini bahkan langsung mendapat respons para pengamat hukum Indonesia asal Australia. Dalam salah satu tulisanya di Sydney Morning Herald (25/5), mereka menyatakan bahwa langkah Presiden SBY yang terkenal retoris setidaknya bisa membawa angin segar bagi para terpidana narkotika lainnya, termasuk untuk kelompok “the Bali Nine”.

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Should the Indonesian Constitution be amended?

Pan Mohamad Faiz *

(Ph.D. Candidate in Constitutional Law at University of Queensland, Australia)

Since it was created for the first time in 1945, the Indonesian Constitution of 1945 (hereinafter the Constitution) has been amended once through the four stages from 1999 to 2002. This constitutional amendment was occurred following the collapse of the New Order regime under Soeharto’s leadership in 1998 (Crouch, 2010). Demands for constitutional reforms by various parties at the time were based on fundamental reasons, such as the Constitution did not have a strong foundation for a democratic life and unclear system of checks and balances (Indrayana, 2008).

Moreover, the Constitution before amendment was also considered causes multiple interpretations that were often used by the government to build a power of authoritarianism (Mahfud, 2000). Presently, ten years after the constitutional reforms, the majority of people feel that the social, political and economic problems are not getting better. At this point, there is a strong movement to amend the Constitution again, because the Constitution is considered to be one of the major factors for causing various problems to the nation.

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