“Narcotics crimes attack the state from the inside. It is an extraordinary crime while death sentence policy for narcotics producers and distributors does not yet have a clear status,” said Prof. Marcus Priyo Gunarto, S.H., M.Hum., promoter for Faissal Malik who defended his doctoral dissertation in Law at Faculty of Law UGM on Monday (30/7).
According to Faissal, previous research had linked death sentence to human right, while he focused on the death sentence itself.
“I saw no clear decision on the execution of death penalty. Some convicts have been executed, while some others have not. The law has not been sufficient because the case only refers to the Law only, while in fact, the Law does not rule the time of execution, but just the procedures,” he said.
He saw there are two contradicting sides on this matter, the abolitionist and retentionist. The abolitionist rejects the death penalty due to human right while the retentionist supports it as the crime threatens the citizens and the world.
Faissal, however, agreed to the notion that there has been compromise in the debate. In his opinion, political and economic variables cannot be separated from the death penalty issue. He proposed a change in criminal sanction for convicts of death penalty. “The norm has to be cleared first so the verdict will be fair, too,” said Faissal.
He opined that this would save the future of Indonesia because legal products with clear certainty will calm the society down. “The society will feel secure from narcotics threats when law certainty is enacted,” he concluded.