Obligation of Indonesian Advocates to Report on Client’s Suspicious Financial Transactions in Legal Enforcement Perspective

Based on the provisions of Article 3 letter a Government Regulation Number 43 of 2015 concerning Reporting Parties in the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering (GR-RPPEML), advocates with other professions are obliged to report to the Center of Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (CFTRA) for suspicious financial transactions. At the implementative level, this provision raises serious legal problems for Advocates in doing their profession. Article 19 paragraph (1) of Act Number 18 of 2003 on Advocates (AoA) expressly determines that an advocate must keep everything known or obtained from his client because of his professional relationship, unless otherwise stipulated by law. The purpose of this study is to find out the legal position of the provisions that oblige the Indonesian advocates to report suspicious financial transactions as referred to in Article 3 letter a of such GR-RPEML. The type of research used is normative legal research with a legal approach and a case approach. The results showed that the provisions requiring advocate profession to report suspicious transactions as referred to in Article 3 letter a of such GR-RPEML do not have a strong legal basis, so it is open to the advocate profession not to carry out these obligations as a reflection of obedience to the AoA itself.