Yasonna Laoly is of mixed Nias and Batak heritage. His father was Faogö’aro Laoly, a police officer and a native of the remote island of Nias. His father once traded frying oil from Medan to Nias due to the low salary of police officers. Before studying law at Universitas Sumatera Utara, Yasonna was planning to become a priest. Yasonna is proud of his Nias heritage, and once wore traditional Nias war dress to an Indonesian independence parade. His selection as a cabinet minister was greeted with enthusiasm by fellow ethnic Nias.
Yasonna's selection was predicted, as he was considered part of the PDI-P's inner circle. As Minister of Law, his portfolio includes administration of Indonesia's penal and immigration institutions, authoring law proposals, and overseeing political organizations. In this position, he helped President Joko Widodo draft the Government Law on Mass Organizations, which banned Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, an organization which seeks to establish a caliphate in Indonesia. The law provoked several demonstrations by HTI's members and sympathizers, and litigation in Constitutional Court of Indonesia. In response to criticism of overcrowding and poor conditions in prisons, he said the problems were caused by a lack of personnel and high land prices, which hampered construction of new prisons. In 2017, Yasonna announced the creation of a National Harmony Council which would use non-judicial mechanisms to deal with past human rights abuses, prompting criticism this would restrict justice for victims and their families. In 2019, Yasonna was criticized for publicly endorsing the Criminal Code bill, which would criminalize criticism of the president and vice president, and criminalize sex outside marriage. He was also criticized over his support for revisions to the Corruption Eradication Commission Law, which were seen as undermining KPK's powers. Yasonna was a member of the government team that drafted the Criminal Code bill, and he represented the government in parliamentary hearings on the amended KPK Law. Following the criticism, Yasonna on 1 October 2019 resigned from his ministerial position, deciding to take a seat he had won in the House of Representatives in the April 2019 general election. However, on 23 October 2019, President Widodo re-appointed Yasonna as minister of justice and human rights for a second period, causing Yasonna to resign from the House of Representatives.
in January 2020 called on President Joko Widodo to dismiss Yasonna, accusing him of obstruction of justice for giving false information on the whereabouts of PDI-P member Harun Masiku, who was declared a corruption suspect on 9 January. The KPK accused Harun of bribing General Elections Commission commissioner Wahyu Setiawan, who had allegedly requested Rp900 million in exchange for approving Harun to replace a deceased member of the House of Representatives. Wahyu was arrested in a sting operation on 8 January, but Harun remained at-large. Yasonna on 16 January said Harun had left Indonesia on 6 January and was still abroad—even though media group Tempo reported that Harun had returned to Indonesia on 7 January. The Directorate General of Immigration, which is part of Yasonna's ministry, took 15 days to admit that Harun had indeed returned on 7 January. Yasonna denied he had deliberately misled the public on the whereabouts of his fellow PDI-P member, saying: "I am a religious person. I swear to god that it was an error." KPK said it would examine whether Yasonna had violated Article 21 of Corruption Law No.31/1999 in conjunction with Law No.20/2001 on the Obstruction of Justice. President Widodo responded to the scandal by calling on ministers to be more careful when giving statements and to cross-check their information. In response to calls by ICW for his own resignation, Yasonna on 28 January 2020 fired Immigration Director General Ronny Sompie, blaming him for the misinformation.
