Despite the Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2010 that protects child offenders (in the context of criminal justice) from criminal charges, in practice, law enforcement agencies have not yet successfully implemented this ruling. “The problem is the verdict has not been successfully communicated to these agencies or the public, they have been left ill-informed,” said Antonius, who had recently completed his dissertation on juvenile criminal justice in the light of the international convention on children’s rights.
As a fresh graduate from the school of public law and international law at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, Antonius has much to say about the issue of children’s rights. In fact, he has conducted a study on Indonesian child offenders viewed from the international convention on children’s rights, concluding that the Indonesian government must disseminate the convention to the police, judges and government officials in charge of matters related to law enforcement.
According to Anton, as he is affectionately called, a former ad hoc member of the Honorary Ethic Tribunal of Indonesian Advocates Association, issues related to the rights of child offenders have not had sufficient attention from the Indonesian government, despite the convention on children’s rights having been ratified in 1990. This is, he said, because efforts to disseminate the internationally-adopted convention have been sluggish, so much so that even children don’t know that they have full rights to seek a legal assistance.
“Compared to most European countries, ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, are devoid of the convention on human rights; thus, when children and migrant workers are implicated in criminal acts, their rights to obtain access to legal aid are simply summarily dismissed.” The paradox is that while the convention on children’s rights grants children — regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, culture or socioeconomic background — equal rights to obtain legal aid, these rights have become the sole privilege of the haves, rather than the have not’s.
Anton illustrates this paradox by citing marginalized children and in particular children in poverty who are prone to criminal conduct — such as stealing, gambling, murder or drug abuse — a behavior that has seen a drastic increase among children and teenagers thus far. “Although these children have the rights to seek legal assistance — who is willing to offer legal aid to these child offenders?” Anton said, adding that due to their economic status not many lawyers will represent them.
Aware that defending the rights of marginalized children is a service that produces no financial outcome, Anton points out the implication that this may have on the fate of child offenders: The guarantee of fairness at court will be at stake. “This situation is further troubled by the fact that journalists are not aware of the convention on children’s rights, especially the protection of child offenders when they cover juvenile criminal cases,” added the associate professor of law of Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta.
Unethical identity exposure in the media — such as photographs, direct interviews or real name disclosure — has become all too common when journalists report juvenile crimes. Anton said this constitutes “criminal labeling”, which not only leads to social stigma but also goes against human rights. Anton said that in stark contrast to European countries; where criminal records of child offenders are considered sacred and must be kept highly confidential, “in a country like Germany, child offenders’ criminal records are highly protected.
They aren’t made public by the media and can only be accessed by selected persons. In so doing, the public will never associate a grown-up with offenses they committed as a child.” While it is true that under Law No. 23/2002 on child protection, the state has tasked the Commission on Child Protection (KPAI) to heighten children’s awareness of their legal rights, Anton observed that the commission is too sterile to perform its tasks “All the KPAI has done so far is to receive complaints and to disseminate normative information, rather than act as an investigator.” Anton does, however, agree that the issue of juvenile criminal justice should not just stop with the government alone but rather, the public should also take some responsibility in the matter.
source : the jakarta post
source : the jakarta post
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