BALI - Director General of Legal Administrative Affairs, Cahyo R. Muhzar, led the negotiation on France and Indonesia’s bilateral agreement regarding mutual legal assistance in criminal matters or MLA. This negotiation is the first round of discussion of the draft MLA agreement conducted with France.
Indonesia has previously established MLA agreements with various countries in Europe, namely Switzerland and Russia, along with Poland which has now reached the stage of finalizing their draft agreement. The agreement with France will be the fourth agreement made between Indonesia and European countries, coordinated by the Ministry of Law and Human Rights (Kemenkumham) of Indonesia, specifically under the Directorate General of Legal Administrative Affairs (Ditjen AHU) as Indonesia’s Central Authority.
“With the negotiation of this draft agreement, we hope the MLA cooperation that has been well established so far will be even better and make it easier for both countries to conduct MLAs,” said Cahyo when leading the negotiations (20/5/24).
He added that in the process of negotiating the draft cooperation agreement, Indonesia has also involved various parties, name the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs (Kemenko Polhukam); Indonesia’s Attorney General Office; the Indonesian National Police; the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK); PPATK; and the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“A potential challenge that we may face during the negotiation process of this agreement would be the difference in legal systems between the two countries, which would require synchronizing the two countries’ interests before the agreement can be agreed upon,” Cahyo explained.
As a member state of the European Union, France is also bound by European Union Directives, including applying provisions on personal data protection and special investigative techniques to its bilateral agreements.
However, he added that through this first-ever MLA agreement discussed between France and Indonesia, it is hoped that both countries can be more effective in dealing with transnational organized crime, and provide great benefits for security and law enforcement on both sides.
France also has provisions regarding postponement of prosecution processes/Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) in bribery corruption cases. This provision was applied by France in the Airbus bribery case against a number of PT Garuda Indonesia, Tbk officials.
Unfortunately, the DPA between France and Airbus with an agreement value of 8,500,000 Euros has not considered Indonesia’s rights as a victim country that has been harmed by the bribery case, considering that PT Garuda Indonesia, Tbk is one of Indonesia’s state-owned enterprises.
“We also hope that this MLA agreement can regulate how law enforcement cooperation that leads to DPA agreements can consider the rights of victim countries, especially Indonesia,” says Cahyo.
For information, the MLA agreement that is being negotiated by the two countries starts from the bilateral relationship between France and Indonesia that has been well established for 74 years. This cooperation is also a concern of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which considers that the dialogue between the two countries shows the trust that has been established, both from the French government and the Indonesian government.
