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The Constitutional Court of Indonesia upheld the death penalty for serious drug offenses Tuesday, dimming hopes of a reprieve for three Australians facing execution for trying to smuggle heroin off the resort island of Bali.
Lawyers for the three men, members of a group of Australians convicted of drug offenses known as the Bali Nine, had hoped a successful constitutional challenge would add weight to their final appeal to the Supreme Court, which had previously escalated their sentence from life imprisonment to death. Should that appeal fail, their last available avenue would be a direct plea to Indonesia's president.
The Constitutional Court ruled 6 to 3 that a 2000 constitutional amendment upholding the right to life did not apply to capital punishment. The court added that the right to life had to be balanced against the rights of victims of drug trafficking.
Lawyers representing the three Australians and two Indonesians also facing capital punishment for drug offenses filed the challenge with the Constitutional Court last January. Three other Australians on death row here had hoped that a constitutional ruling might lead to a review of their case.
Three other Australians are serving between 20 years and life for their involvement in the smuggling ring. The so-called Bali Nine were arrested in 2005 for trying to smuggle 8.2 kilograms, or 18 pounds, of heroin into Australia from Bali.
The death penalty is not an uncommon punishment for drug trafficking in Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. At the beginning of this year, 134 people, including 34 foreigners, were on death row in Indonesia, the vast majority for drug-related crimes, according to government statistics. In 2004, two Thai citizens were executed in Indonesia on drug charges.
The Australian government, a staunch opponent of capital punishment, has usually pleaded for clemency for its citizens facing execution abroad.
Last year, Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer appealed to the Singaporean government in the case of a Melbourne resident, Nguyen Tuong Van, who was eventually put to death for smuggling heroin.
Recently, Downer said that if the Constitutional Court did not rule in the Australians' favor and final appeals were rejected, he would approach the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Yudhoyono, however, has shown no sign of wavering on the death penalty. Earlier this year, despite an international outcry, he went ahead with the executions of three Christians convicted of inciting religious violence on the island of Sulawesi. Numerous members of the president's cabinet have also voiced support for the death penalty.
Although few expected the Constitutional Court to abolish capital punishment altogether, opponents of the death penalty were hoping for a ruling that might lead to a review of all pending death penalty cases, including those of the three men found guilty in the 2002 bombings in Bali that left 202 people dead. The three have exhausted their appeals and are to go before a firing squad in the coming month.
Rudi Satrio, a legal expert at the University of Indonesia, who had filed a brief to the court recommending a 10-year waiting period for executions in case new evidence should come to light, said he was not surprised by the court's decision, considering Indonesia's tough stance on drug offenses.
"Narcotics are a big problem here, I am not surprised at the court's decision," Satrio said. "But maybe if a challenge is brought in the future to the Constitutional Court about the death penalty in general, not just in terms of drug offenses, maybe we will see some change. And any change at all would force the lower courts to review all death penalty cases."
Indonesian court upholds death penalty for drug offenses
International Herald Tribune
October 30, 2007
Link
Lawyers for the three men, members of a group of Australians convicted of drug offenses known as the Bali Nine, had hoped a successful constitutional challenge would add weight to their final appeal to the Supreme Court, which had previously escalated their sentence from life imprisonment to death. Should that appeal fail, their last available avenue would be a direct plea to Indonesia's president.
The Constitutional Court ruled 6 to 3 that a 2000 constitutional amendment upholding the right to life did not apply to capital punishment. The court added that the right to life had to be balanced against the rights of victims of drug trafficking.
Lawyers representing the three Australians and two Indonesians also facing capital punishment for drug offenses filed the challenge with the Constitutional Court last January. Three other Australians on death row here had hoped that a constitutional ruling might lead to a review of their case.
Three other Australians are serving between 20 years and life for their involvement in the smuggling ring. The so-called Bali Nine were arrested in 2005 for trying to smuggle 8.2 kilograms, or 18 pounds, of heroin into Australia from Bali.
The death penalty is not an uncommon punishment for drug trafficking in Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. At the beginning of this year, 134 people, including 34 foreigners, were on death row in Indonesia, the vast majority for drug-related crimes, according to government statistics. In 2004, two Thai citizens were executed in Indonesia on drug charges.
The Australian government, a staunch opponent of capital punishment, has usually pleaded for clemency for its citizens facing execution abroad.
Last year, Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer appealed to the Singaporean government in the case of a Melbourne resident, Nguyen Tuong Van, who was eventually put to death for smuggling heroin.
Recently, Downer said that if the Constitutional Court did not rule in the Australians' favor and final appeals were rejected, he would approach the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Yudhoyono, however, has shown no sign of wavering on the death penalty. Earlier this year, despite an international outcry, he went ahead with the executions of three Christians convicted of inciting religious violence on the island of Sulawesi. Numerous members of the president's cabinet have also voiced support for the death penalty.
Although few expected the Constitutional Court to abolish capital punishment altogether, opponents of the death penalty were hoping for a ruling that might lead to a review of all pending death penalty cases, including those of the three men found guilty in the 2002 bombings in Bali that left 202 people dead. The three have exhausted their appeals and are to go before a firing squad in the coming month.
Rudi Satrio, a legal expert at the University of Indonesia, who had filed a brief to the court recommending a 10-year waiting period for executions in case new evidence should come to light, said he was not surprised by the court's decision, considering Indonesia's tough stance on drug offenses.
"Narcotics are a big problem here, I am not surprised at the court's decision," Satrio said. "But maybe if a challenge is brought in the future to the Constitutional Court about the death penalty in general, not just in terms of drug offenses, maybe we will see some change. And any change at all would force the lower courts to review all death penalty cases."
Indonesian court upholds death penalty for drug offenses
International Herald Tribune
October 30, 2007
Link
