Direct questioning forbidden in Pakpahan subversion trial
JAKARTA (JP): The subversion trial of union leader Muchtar Pakpahan continued yesterday with presiding judge Djazuli P. Sudibyo prohibiting defense lawyers from directly questioning witnesses.
Djazuli ordered lawyers to raise their questions through him. One of the lawyers, Adnan Buyung Nasution, protested the decision strongly and said the procedure was "inefficient and confusing the witnesses".
Adnan also argued questioning witnesses through the judge "reduced the substance and essence of questions raised".
Djazuli did not give a reason for his instruction. In a previous court session he ordered defense lawyers to question witnesses indirectly. The defense lawyers protested the order, though not as strongly as yesterday.
Yesterday, Djazuli rebuked Adnan for questioning labor activist Sunarty from the unrecognized Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union (SBSI) that Pakpahan chairs. Sunarty was the second witness that the prosecution produced yesterday, after SBSI deputy chairman Yacub Ereste.
Djazuli, however, dismissed Adnan's protest as having no basis in the Criminal Code Procedures. Adnan retorted that neither did Criminal Code Procedures regulate that all questions be passed to a witness through the judge.
Witnesses Sunarty and Yacub, brought in by Prosecutor R. Moekiat, testified yesterday that they were unaware Pakpahan had made the allegedly anti-government and anti-President Soeharto statements during various speeches he gave between 1995 and 1996.
Sunarty told the court that the defendant had been fighting to help workers obtain their rights through peaceful means.
Judge Djadzuli adjourned yesterday's hearing until Monday.
In a separate session also at the South Jakarta District Court, the subversion trial of four activists of the Democratic People's Party (PRD) continued. The four activists are Petrus Hariyanto, Ken Budha Kusamandaru, Victor Da Costa and Ignatius Putut Arintoko.
The activists were charged under the 1963 Anti-Subversion Law for alleged involvement in activities which undermined the government and the state ideology Pancasila. They are facing the death sentence.
Manifesto
At the Central Jakarta District Court, the trial of PRD chairman Budiman Sudjatmiko also continued. The prosecution presented politician Sri Bintang Pamungkas in an attempt to prove that the youth activist had been engaged in subversion.
However, Bintang who is in a legal battle against the government, said the "political manifesto" upon which the prosecution tried to build their subversion case against Budiman, was actually a rehash of old issues.
The content of the "political manifesto" that Budiman read out when declaring the establishment of PRD in 1996 included a call for the abolition of the existing laws on politics and for a review of the dual function of the Armed Forces, as well as a protest against social disparity.
"There's nothing new inside Budiman's speech," Bintang said. "Their goal is similar to that of my own party, namely making this country more democratic based on the 1945 Constitution and Pancasila state ideology."
Bintang, a former legislator from the United Development Party (PPP) who was dismissed from the House of Representatives in 1995, formed a new political party called the Indonesian Democratic Union Party (PUDI) on May 29, 1996. The government never recognized this party.
Bintang said in his testimony that most of the demands of Budiman's organization had previously been pushed forward by PUDI.
"Criticism about the dual-function (in security and politics) of the Armed Forces, the demand that the political laws be revoked, protests against social disparity, had all been voiced by my party before," said the University of Indonesia lecturer.
"And I've never been tried for declaring my party and its own political manifesto," he said.
Budiman's lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan questioned Bintang using a statement from the prosecutor's file. "The prosecutor charged that the Democratic People's Party gave an award to persons who evidently defied the government. Are you one of them ?"
Bintang said he had once been called "a rebel" and accused of being a communist. "But the truth is I just have opinions which are very different from those of the government's," he said.
Bintang was among several people who received the PRD award; the others include senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad and writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
"After I received the award, I told the activists of PRD that I also support a multiparty political system and oppose the single party system....only in communist states does the single party system exist," said Bintang. (35/08)