DENPASAR, BALINEWS – The legal team representing former Bali National Land Agency (BPN) Regional Office Head I Made Daging has urged the Bali Police to respect a previous pretrial ruling and allow the underlying criminal case to be examined in a trial on its merits.
The demand was made during the third pretrial hearing, which was held at the Denpasar District Court on Thursday (October 29, 2026), with the agenda of hearing the applicant’s reply to the police’s response.
Gede Pasek Suardika, known as GPS, one of Made Daging’s lawyers, argued that repeated decisions to terminate investigations and subsequently designate his client as a suspect in a separate case could create legal uncertainty if the process continued without resolution.
Suardika said the reply was submitted in response to the Bali Police’s arguments as the respondent. He maintained that the purpose of the pretrial proceedings was to ensure that the case could be examined in court under the legal provisions previously considered in earlier proceedings.
“We want the case to proceed to trial under Articles 421 and 83, as their validity has already been established in the earlier proceedings. We do not want a situation where someone is designated a suspect again, the investigation is terminated, and then they are made a suspect again. Otherwise, the process will never end,” Suardika said.
He also questioned the documents relating to the termination of the investigation and the revocation of his client’s suspect status, arguing that they had failed to take the previous pretrial ruling into account. According to him, this raised procedural issues that needed to be examined by the judge.
Suardika stressed that the previous ruling should be respected by all parties. He hoped the case could proceed to a full trial, where the court could determine whether the alleged conduct constituted a criminal offense.
He further argued that Made Daging’s designation as a suspect in the latest case under Articles 391 and 392 required judicial scrutiny, claiming that the move conflicted with Article 3 of the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP). He emphasized that this was part of the applicant’s legal arguments before the court.
Meanwhile, another member of the legal team, I Made Ariel Suardana, focused on the issue of the applicant’s legal standing to challenge the termination of an investigation through pretrial proceedings.
Suardana argued that Article 161 of Law No. 20 of 2025 on the Criminal Procedure Code should be interpreted in its entirety. He said the word “may” in the provision should not automatically be interpreted as excluding parties who believe they have been harmed from seeking a pretrial review.
He also questioned what he described as repeated investigations involving the same subject and object, while raising concerns about administrative procedures in the issuance of investigation documents.
“Pretrial Ruling No. 1 of 2026 must be included. If a court ruling is ignored, it means the entire process has not been taken into account,” Suardana said.
The Bali Police Legal Affairs Division, representing the respondent, maintained that Made Daging lacked the legal standing to file a pretrial application challenging the termination of an investigation.
AKBP I Nyoman Gatra, head of the legal assistance subdivision at the Bali Police Legal Affairs Division, said the disputed matter remained within the investigative process. He added that investigators had the authority to terminate an investigation in accordance with applicable law.
Gatra also said the police would present a criminal law expert at the next hearing.
“The respondent’s rejoinder will be presented tomorrow, followed by expert testimony from both the applicant and the respondent,” Gatra said.
The third pretrial proceeding concerns the termination of Made Daging’s suspect status in an earlier report and his subsequent designation as a suspect in a second report involving alleged document forgery.
The Bali Police have previously maintained that the two reports concern separate cases. The first involves allegations of abuse of authority and archival issues, while the second concerns alleged document forgery.
Boy Barzini Hanes, a lawyer representing the reporting party, also argued that Made Daging lacked the legal standing to challenge the termination of the investigation through pretrial proceedings.
Hanes maintained that the application was unrelated to the second report, which forms the basis of Made Daging’s current suspect status.
A similar position was expressed by Fitraman Hardyansah, a lawyer representing Made Tarip Widarta. He argued that the application was problematic because, according to his side, the termination of the investigation had previously been requested by Made Daging’s own legal team.
With the parties maintaining differing legal positions, the third pretrial proceeding has become a forum to examine the legal basis of the application, the authority of investigators, and the applicant’s standing under criminal procedural law.
The court’s eventual ruling will determine how the application is to be dealt with under the applicable legal framework.
