Menggugat Pasal-pasal Pencemaran nama baik

particularly as the Press Law, for the most part, as in the case of defamation, fails to provide any framework or guidance on how to deal with these issues.

Significant areas of law would simply be swept away and replaced with silence, creating significant legal uncertainty.

Third, and closely related, there is no indication whatsoever either in the Press Law itself, or anything in the drafting process, to indicate that its intended effect was to replace existing content restrictions insofar as they might be applied to the media. It is hardly reasonable to suggest that such a far-reaching legal regime could have been established without even the merest indication that this was intended.

Fourth, using the Press Law for defamation involving the media would lead to the peculiar result of one set of defamation principles applying to those who publish via the media and another set of principles applying to those who publish in any other form, including, for example via books or films.

There is no apparent justification for this distinction, rarely recognised in other systems of law.

It may, therefore, be concluded that the appropriate approach to reforming the Indonesian defamation laws is through direct amendment of the existing criminal and civil defamation provisions. Although this is no doubt more difficult and time-consuming than simply assigning cases involving the media to the 1999 Press Law, it at least holds out the promise of more far-reaching reform, applicable to everyone charged with defamation, not just the media.

At the same time, the system set up by the 1999 Press Law is far from irrelevant to the question of defamation. The Press Law establishes a Press Council which has the responsibility, among other things, to deal with complaints from the public regarding press abuses. Such complaints may include cases of defamation. To the extent that these complaints are resolved through the Press Council, this should affect any possible future sanction that may be applied through the courts (see below, under Sanctions).

Criminal Defamation Criminal defamation laws have produced a serious chilling effect on freedom of expression in many countries where such laws are not only oppressive in themselves, but are also roundly abused. It is submitted that these laws, in and of themselves, breach the right to freedom of expression.

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