Three major factions in the House of Representatives said on Friday they would seek the revision of the controversial Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE) Law, following a public uproar over the use of the law to detain Prita Mulyasari for defamation.
Members of the Golkar Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) said they would take the initiative to propose a revision of the ITE Law in 2010 even though it had not previously been officially designated a priority issue for the House.
The decision comes after Prita was detained and charged for sending an e-mail message complaining about the treatment she received at a hospital to 20 of her friends.
“We didn’t know that they would take the law as far as to use it to jail Prita. Our initial philosophy was never to criminalize what people say within the private domain,” PAN faction chairman Asman Abnur told the Jakarta Globe.
Prosecutors charged Prita with violating Chapter 27, Article 3 of the ITE Law.
The law carries a maximum punishment of six years in jail and a fine of up to Rp 1 billion ($106,000).
Prita has been accused of defaming upscale Omni International Hospital through an e-mail criticizing the facility’s treatment.
Asman said that given Prita’s case, the House needed to make the evaluation of the law a priority.
“A new draft can be proposed at the House’s initiative. We just need to set the time to propose it,” Asman said.
Ade Komarudin, secretary of the Golkar faction, agreed the law needed to be reviewed.
“We can handle it in a way that it becomes a priority. We are ready for this because a person was victimized as a result of the implementation of this law,” Ade said, adding that his faction had urged the government to issue a regulation to clarify the article that was used to charge Prita.
Prita is currently being retried for the criminal defamation of two doctors at Omni International Hospital. The Tangerang District Court threw out the original charges, but prosecutors succeeded in getting the case back in the court.
Mustafa Kamal, PKS faction chairman, said on Friday a revision of the law was necessary and should clarify which domains were considered private and which public in pursuing defamation cases.
“Changes need to be made so that the law is not taken too far and misused to criminalize individuals,” Mustafa said.
Gatot Dewa Broto, spokesman for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, said the government was in the process of deliberating the formulation of a regulation to provide specifics on the ITE Law. Deliberations are scheduled to end in April 2010.
He said that the ministry looked forward to receiving the House’s revised draft of the law.
With the exception of the article that was used to charge Prita, Gatot said that he hoped the law would not be annulled by the Constitutional Court.
“The ITE Law is good because it provides legal certainty in regard to banking-related crimes,” Gatot said.
He added that law enforcers, including prosecutors, were to blame for “misinterpreting” the law. Febriamy Hutapea
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