A miscarriage of justice?

The Supreme Court has once again come out with a rather startling ruling. About a month ago this supreme judicial body annulled its own ruling, the one in favor of villagers in the Kedung Ombo dam area. Now the Supreme Court has rejected the request for a review of the Lingah, Pacah and Sumir trial case.

Both these cases have attracted a good deal of public attention despite the fact that they are unrelated. It is perhaps only a coincidence that in both cases the Supreme Court's decision did not favor the common people. As a consequence, it is hard to avoid the impression that justice is hard to obtain for people such as the Kedung Ombo inhabitants or Lingah and friends.

One argument often expressed by law enforcers is that in any trial case one side is certain to be left dissatisfied. For the public, however, the important thing is not who is satisfied and who is not. At the core of the problem is the public's sense of justice. Court verdicts should be just. The guilty party must be punished while the one which is not guilty should not be penalized.

In the Lingah-Pacah case questions arose when a person named Asun admitted to being the one who killed Pamor. On the other hand Lingah and companions denied, from the beginning of the trial, that they had been the ones who committed the murder.

However, the Supreme Court judge in charge of examining the request for a review of the case rejected Asun's admission, on the ground that such an admission had no legal strength, that is to say Asun had not been investigated or tried for the murder of Pamor. The principle of the presumption of innocence was another argument cited for the Supreme Court's rejection. Many other questions remain unanswered because, as was reported, the Secretary General of the Supreme Court refused to answer questions from the press.

More important than all this, however, is the reality that logical reasoning and the sense of justice are often pushed aside with rigidly construed legal arguments. In order to satisfy the judicial requirements, the notion of justice is allowed to become complicated and tends to be defined by "scientific" dictums.

But one universally accepted adage that has long been held is that it is better to acquit ten guilty persons than to punish one who is innocent. If it is true that the judge in question doubts the veracity of Asun's admission, another adage can provide the solution: In case of doubt, the defendant should be acquitted; or at least, in the case of conflicting evidence, the testimony that is to the advantage of the defendant must be used.

-- Kompas, Jakarta