Equality for rich and poor?

Winahyo Soekanto, Lawyer, Consumer Care Foundation (YPK), Jakarta

Come to Hall B of the Jakarta Fair Ground in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta these days and witness how Akbar Tandjung, a suspect in the multi-billion-fraud case, and Tommy Mandala Putra, a suspect in the murder of justice Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, defend their cases. Broadcast live by television cameras, the trials are fast becoming a favorite show to many, helping increased ratings and maybe more advertisements for the television stations.

In the air-conditioned facilities, judges, prosecutors, and legal counsels no longer have to sweat and feel the heat in their robes and suits, while the presence of a large number of police personnel helps ensure that the defendants are safe and that the trials proceed smoothly.

The same comfort may also help the defendants prepare their best defenses -- the upholding of human dignity as mandated by the Law No. 14/1970 on the judiciary. The judges' recent decision to release Akbar from detention may also prove to be favorable to his defense.

The question is whether such comfort and the legal facilities afforded to those big shots are also available for everybody else. Yet for some, street justice is the best that they can get.

In Bogor, West Java, a mob of hundreds of people recently beat up and killed Herman bin Santa who was suspected of stealing a motorbike. Herman was under police escort when the mob attacked him. In Pekayon, Bekasi, West Java, hundreds of angry people dragged Musa, a suspected thief out of his house, stripped him naked and tied him to a motorcycle. Someone then rode the motorbike, dragging the suspected thief behind the vehicle and killing him.

This glaring contrast cannot be anything else than the result of the government's failure to ensure equal protection under the laws as mandated by the 1945 Constitution and the 1979 law on the judiciary which stipulates that Indonesia is a democracy that upholds the law and that guarantees equality before the law and that guarantees the government's stance against discrimination.

But we are forced to witness how legal processes here often neglect the principle of equality before the law. This is especially true in cases that involve big businesses, for instance, the conglomerates that have harmed the state's financial interests through their violation of the government's regulation in the use of hundreds of trillions of bank liquidity assistance (BLBI).

The suspects in those cases are now either still free because they somehow defeated the legal system, or got away with the minimum sanction. Take David Nusa Widjaja, for instance, who was recently sentenced to a year of imprisonment for embezzling Rp 1.29 trillion (about US$ 134 million) of the BLBI fund.

Yet the government has failed to protect the rights of suspected thieves who were lynched to death. This has been taking place for so long despite Indonesia having the mandate of the Criminal Code that stipulates the rights of anyone facing legal situations to a state-sponsored legal counsel, to an independent and honest and speedy trial.

These cases form the basis of the public experience of the laws, leading people to ask the age-old questions: What and who are the laws for? Why does the law have two faces? A friendly one toward the powerful and the rich with resources at their disposal to hire expensive lawyers and procure comfort even in the detention cells; and a vicious, frowning one toward the direction of the poor and the downtrodden.

When the rich and the powerful commit a crime they do so out of greed -- no one can dispute that -- while the small fry criminals break the law because life has dealt them a tough blow. That is not rhetoric, but the findings of a survey last February conducted by the Partnership for Good Governance on Corruption in Indonesia. The majority of respondents believe the Indonesian judiciary is part of a legal system that favors the rich and the powerful.

Almost two-thirds of Indonesian households who answered a nationwide survey reported falling victim to corruption by public officials, according to the report. Traffic police are considered the most corrupt body, followed by the customs department and the judiciary, while mosques, churches and temples were seen as the least corrupt institutions, followed by the post office, the news media, non-government organizations and labor unions.

When the "little people" resort to violence and violations of the law in expressing their frustration, they incur even greater costs. Some get killed while the rich and the powerful retain their positions even as they face legal charges -- that's what has happened to Central Bank Governor Syahril Sabirin and House Speaker Akbar Tandjung.

The corrupt power holders and business people adhere to an entirely different rule of the game that enable them to "gain at no pain" while the poor and the downtrodden often have to endure so much pain and no gain.

Another study, conducted by the Indonesian Society for Transparency (MTI) in 1999-2000, found that out of 395 presidential decrees issued since 1971, 79 of them smacked of corruption and nepotism.

The law has been pummeled by the law enforcers themselves, the political power holders and corrupt business people that it has degenerated into a mere political tool for the power holders seeking to further their own interests at the expenses of ordinary people. Legal processes now abuse the public trust, and become not much more than a tool of the centralization of powers.

In addition, the law has become a means for the corrupt and colluding business people to justify their acts, including those that will kill competition, and to gain privileges in businesses.

Harold J. Berman of the Harvard Law School defined the law as an expression of the human rationale and morality, and that it cannot be considered a law that does not support the ideals for which it is established.

It is thus high time that Indonesia ends the expressions of the law that insult our common sense and the morality of the public.