Kominfo Ministry Backs Creation of ITE Law Interpretation Guidelines

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kominfo) pledged to follow up on President Joko Widodo or Jokowi's statement on the revision of the Law on Information and Electronic Transactions or for short, ITE Law.

"Kominfo supports the Supreme Court, Police, Attorney General's Office, and related ministries or institutions to draft official interpretation guidelines for ITE Law to provide clearer interpretations," said the ministry's spokesperson Dedy Permadi to Tempo on Thursday, February 18, 2021.

Dedy explained that the law was initially aimed at keeping the country's digital space to stay clean, healthy, ethical, and productive. The government underlined that the policy implementation must not cause a sense of injustice.

The government, he added, would be more selective in responding to and accepting reports of violations of the law and articles that could cause multiple interpretations to be interpreted carefully.

"Article 27 (3) and Article 28 (2) of the law, which are often considered as vague articles, have been submitted for judicial review several times to the Constitutional Court (MK) and have always been declared constitutional," said Dedy.

The law was also the result of a review of other prevailing laws, he informed. He recalled that the policy had been revised in 2016 by considering several decisions of the Constitutional Court.

“However, if it still cannot provide a sense of justice, then the possibility to revise the ITE Law is open, we support it in line with the President’s order,” said Dedy.

Read: Lokataru: ITE Law Revision Cannot Necessarily Restore Democracy

EGI ADYATAMA