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A young man smoking at a Jakarta food court. (JG Photo/Jurnasyanto Sukarno)

Coalition to File Complaint Over House Committee Inaction on Smoking Clause

The Coalition Against the Corruption of the Anti-Tobacco Clause is scheduled to file a complaint against a House of Representatives committee at National Police headquarters on Monday, for its failure to do anything about the exclusion of the clause from the health bill, which was subsequently passed into law.

Kartono Muhammad, chairman of the coalition, also known as Kakar, said the group had learned that the House’s Ethics Council, which conducted investigations into the deletion of the clause, had found “indications” it had been removed deliberately.

“Such a statement from the Ethics Council is ammunition for the coalition. We are more certain than ever that there was a systematic effort to purposely omit the article from the health bill,” Kartono said.

Tulus Abadi, chairman of the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), said among Kakar’s members were a number of nongovernmental organizations, including itself, the Indonesian Corruption Watch, the Indonesian Tobacco Control Network and the National Commission for Child Protection.

“We reported the case to the Jakarta Police but it was dropped, their reason being that a case with such nationwide ramifications should be dealt with by the National Police,” Tulus said.

“The Jakarta Police have made a huge blunder. How could they refuse to accommodate a public complaint?” he asked.

The complaint on Monday will most likely be filed against the House committee responsible for deliberating the Health Bill, then led by Ribka Tjiptaning from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

Ribka had previously claimed that the elimination of the clause was only an administrative error, saying the House had mistakenly delivered an older draft of the bill to the State Secretariat.

Hakim Sarimuda Pohan, who was a member of House Commission IX overseeing health, said on Wednesday that the Ethics Council’s statement set a new precedent in the fight against the “crime.”

“Omitting an article, according to the Constitution, is the ultimate crime, even the President doesn’t have the right to alter the law,” said Hakim, who is from Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party.

The article in question identifies tobacco as an addictive substance.

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