ABSTRACT
In spite of the existence of international human rights laws and the inclusion of similar laws at the national level, serious human rights violations have continued to occur. In the case of Indonesia, severe violations of human rights have been committed systematically as a means of maintaining the government’s status quo. After a long discussion, the House of Representative (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat or hereinafter so called as DPR) passed the bill as a definitive law. The enactment of the Human Rights Law on 23 November 2000 implies a new hope for the enforcement of human rights in Indonesia. In this law, it is stipulated that the Human Rights Court has the authority to try severe human rights violations, including crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. In the explanation, it is stated that the severe human rights violations stipulated under this law are in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This paper will depict the substance of the law on the Human Rights Court and the enactment process, more specifically concerning the debate in parliament while discussing the substance of the law. Hence, this paper will focus on the debates on the legislative process in the DPR by presenting views from different factions in the parliamentary debate in the legislative process. Depicting the views of some of the factions in the parliamentary debates will give an idea to the readers about the importance of the law on the Human Rights Court in relation to the settlement of some severe past violations of human rights.
