Courts favor the rich in land disputes: Lopa
Courts favor the rich in land disputes: Lopa
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's courts of law have a tendency to
favor the rich and powerful in land conflicts, the Secretary-
General of the National Commission on Human Rights said.
Baharuddin Lopa said many land conflicts tried in court have
ended with the rulings favoring the rich people acquiring the
land.
Most judges only look at the legal formalities of the
conflict, particularly the possession of land titles, Lopa told a
seminar on land issues on Thursday.
Most court rulings have been detrimental to the poor because
they often do not possess land titles, which they may have
neglected to process out of ignorance, or owing to difficulty in
getting the proper certificates, he said.
He suggested that judges also look at the sociological aspects
of the land conflicts they are trying.
Land disputes now top the list of complaints brought before
the rights commission, he told the seminar, which was jointly
organized by the Student Senate of the School of Law of Jakarta
University and the Association of Law Student Senates in
Indonesia.
Several of the land conflicts in Indonesia in recent years
were highly politicized, with many turning violent. Hundreds of
thousands of people have been displaced as their houses and
farmlands are acquired for reservoirs, industrial estates,
plantations, residential areas and golf courses.
In many land disputes, the titles to the land were in the
hands of the buyers, usually either the government or a privately
owned company, Lopa said. This is because the government and
companies have easier access to land certificates, he added.
Security officers often side with the strong parties in land
conflicts rather than with the evicted people, he said, citing
collusion as a probable cause.
Lopa said that because of the mounting number of land disputes
referred to the human rights commission, it has drawn up some
basic guidelines on land ownership issues.
The guidelines underline the need for the party who is
procuring the land to provide an alternative location for those
evicted, in addition to financial compensation, he said.
"This must be provided before the people are evicted or their
houses demolished," he said.
Also, those who buy land from poor villagers are encouraged to
give the displaced occupants equity in whatever venture they are
building on the land, or to hire the villagers as workers, Lopa
said.
Failure to involve the local people could have social
repercussions which would endanger the company's presence on the
appropriated land, he said.
In many land disputes, if compensation was offered to the
evicted villagers, it was too little to enable them to buy new
property elsewhere, he said. (16)