Court rejects lawsuit filed against police

JAKARTA (JP): South Jakarta District Court predictably rejected lawsuits filed by 57 Megawati Soekarnoputri supporters against Jakarta Police Chief Maj. Hamami Nata over their detention yesterday.

The same court also threw out lawsuits filed by a further 65 people arrested in the same incident on the grounds that they had been absent from the court on the three occasions for which hearings in the case had been scheduled.

Fourteen judges read the ruling in the absence of the plaintiffs and their lawyers. They said their ruling had based solely on evidence submitted by the police.

"The plaintiffs wasted their chances to submit evidence by failing to appear at earlier hearings," Judge K. Simanjuntak said.

The six courtrooms prepared for the plaintiffs were unusually quiet, with only police lawyers, judges, court secretaries and several relatives of the plaintiffs present.

Outraged by the authorities' refusal to release the detainees for the court hearings, 15 lawyers representing the plaintiffs refused to sit on the ruling. They waited forlornly in the empty foyer outside the courtroom.

In a prepared written statement, they said the ruling was predictable and they refused to attend the hearing because they did not believe the judges were independent.

Simanjuntak said the plaintiffs, all members of Barisan Merah Putih (The Red and White Front), were arrested on Feb. 11. and received arrest warrants the following day.

He said the police charged the plaintiffs under Article 5 of Law 5/1963 on political activities, not Article 510 of the Criminal Code on unlicensed street rallies.

The detainees claimed they had at first been charged under the latter article, and only received arrest warrants fives days after being detained, which is illegal under Indonesian law.

Only 27 of the arrested demonstrators were charged for participating in an illegal street rally, Simanjuntak said. These individuals have all been released.

The group of 57 plaintiffs are being detained at Cipinang and Pondok Bambu penitentiaries and the group of 65 are being held at the city police detention center.

The 122 plaintiffs were among 157 people arrested while marching from the Attorney General's Office to the Ministry of Manpower to demand the government lower the prices of basic commodities.

Only a small number of relatives of the detainees visited court yesterday. They said they knew the police would never allow their loved ones to attend the court session.

They heckled the court clerk and judges when they began formal proceedings in the absence of those who had brought the case to court. The judges called out the plaintiffs' names one by one, followed by their ruling on each case.

Petrus Selestinus, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, said: "We don't trust this institution because the rights of the plaintiffs have been ignored."

In a statement, lawyers from the Defense Team of Indonesian Democracy, who were representing the plaintiffs, said they would bring new legal proceedings against the city police chief and the Jakarta Prosecutor's Office for interfering with the case.

The lawyers said they would also reregister suits for the group of 65 plaintiffs whose cases were dropped yesterday.

They criticized the court for not ordering the prosecutor's office and city police to bring the plaintiffs to court, arguing the plaintiffs' rights to fair legal treatment had been violated.

"What we have witnessed is the state of our judicial system. The prosecutor's office and the police are clever at claiming their rights while neglecting their obligations," they said. (jun)