Justice must prevail<\/p>\n
Almost unnoticed, a month has passed since the reform-minded
\nAbdurrahman Wahid became President of Indonesia. By any standard,
\none month is not much of a time span for anyone to try to bring
\norder to a legal system that can only be called, at best,
\ndisorderly. For Indonesia, where the law can be said to have
\ntruly ruled only for about the first decade-and-a-half of the
\ncountry's 54 years of independence, putting order to a legal
\nsystem that can only be justly described as chaotic is a gigantic
\ntask that normally might take a succession of governments decades
\nto correct.<\/p>\n
Yet, putting order to the legal mess is one of the most urgent
\nfirst priorities that somehow must be accomplished before
\nIndonesians can even think of rebuilding their country's
\neconomic, social and political infrastructure, devastated by
\ndecades of iron-fisted rule by governments whose sole interest
\nseemed to have been the preservation of their own power. How
\nextensive the damage that has been done can be imagined just by
\nconsidering the following facts.<\/p>\n
In 1959, then president Sukarno, distressed by endless
\nbickering among political factions that destabilized the country
\nand made economic development impossible -- a phenomenon which he
\nsaw as proof of the unsuitability of a Western-style parliament
\nfor Indonesia -- unilaterally decreed a return to the country's
\ntentative constitution decreed a day after the proclamation of
\nindependence on August 17, 1945. Known as the 1945 Constitution
\n-- which is still valid even today -- it provides for a strong,
\neven dominant executive.<\/p>\n
Once in full control of the administration, Sukarno set out to
\n\"retool\" the various instruments of state in a manner that he
\nbelieved, under his leadership, would push Indonesia toward
\ngrowth and make it one of the leading powers, at least in the
\ndeveloping world. Among the most far-reaching actions Sukarno
\ntook to buttress his system of \"guided democracy\" was to formally
\nrepudiate the generally accepted principle of the separation of
\npowers, known as trias politica, which denies the executive a
\nfree hand in the administration of the state. By giving the
\nattorney general and the head of the Supreme Court Cabinet
\nminister status, the judiciary was effectively subordinated to
\nthe executive.<\/p>\n
Measures to control social and political life were taken
\nelsewhere, too, but it was the subordination of the judiciary
\nthat paved the way to total control by the state of practically
\nevery aspect of public life in Indonesia. With Sukarno's demise,
\nSoeharto took over, only to perpetuate his predecessor's old
\nsystem of total state control, albeit in a more subtle design,
\nknown as \"Pancasila democracy\". The kinds and the extent of
\nabuses and excesses which these two authoritarian system produced
\nare now well enough known. The obvious lesson that all this
\nprovides is that more than a few things are essentially wrong
\nwith the 1945 Constitution that must be amended -- a task that
\nthe People's Consultative Assembly, the country's highest policy-
\nmaking body, is currently working on. All this will obviously
\ntake time to accomplish. In the meantime, though, a few aspects
\ncan be delayed only at the risk of stalling the current process
\nof total reform or, at its worst, of a breakup of the country.<\/p>\n
The first aspect concerns the government's pledge to establish
\ngood and clean governance by putting an end to corruption,
\ncollusion and nepotism, once and for all. In this matter it is
\nimportant that action is taken before the community starts losing
\nits confidence in both the government and the legislature. Given
\nthe difficulties encountered so far to prove corruption, it seems
\nthe time has come for the House of Representatives to work on a
\nnew law that puts the burden of proof on the accused, rather than
\non the plaintiff. There should be little in the way of passing
\nsuch a law, considering that quite a number of countries across
\nthe world already apply such a reversal of the burden of proof.<\/p>\n
A second and most important issue is the satisfactory
\nconclusion of currently outstanding cases of human rights abuses.
\nAlthough human rights violations have been and are being
\ncommitted not only by the military but also by civilians, it is
\nthe military which deserves our special attention. Not only have
\nsurveys indicated that most human rights abuses are committed by
\nmilitary personnel, the military has so far in most cases been
\ngiven the special consideration of being tried by its own
\nmilitary tribunals, or even special councils of honor, rather
\nthan civilian courts.<\/p>\n
With an injured sense of justice playing such an important
\npart in fueling the flames of unrest in several regions, most
\nparticularly Aceh, it is of the utmost importance that justice is
\nnot only done, but is seen to be done. For this reason, our
\nmilitary can make a most valuable contribution to holding this
\nnation together, simply by recognizing the need for a fair public
\ntrial, in a civilian court, of any of its members who are accused
\nof or suspected of such violations. This is the only way the
\npublic's confidence in and respect for the government and the
\nmilitary can be restored.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/justice-must-prevail-1447893297",
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