Justice warns about unsolved, 'frozen' cases

JAKARTA (JP): Senior justice Adi Andojo Soetjipto warned yesterday that people could take the law onto their own hands out of desperation because the courts had failed to solve their cases.

"If people failed to find justice in court, they might be tempted to 'settle' things out of court," Adi, Deputy Chief Justice for General Crimes at the Supreme Court, was quoted by Antara as saying.

Speaking after a legal workshop at the Pontianak-based Tanjungpura University in West Kalimantan, Adi, known for blowing the whistle on alleged corruption in the Supreme Court, admitted that judges encountered difficulties preventing, or allowing, cases to be "frozen" for various reasons.

He did not elaborate on factors that led to cases being frozen, but said he had experienced many times the frustration of seeing the cases he was handling being halted midway.

He did not give examples. Many people, however, could name cases where the law enforcers suddenly dropped the charges without explanation.

Separately, in Semarang, legal expert Satjipto Rahardjo said Indonesia's record on law enforcement in 1996 was not satisfactory.

"We have to admit that our judiciary is complicated. Some people even say that how our laws work is cause for desperation," Satjipto, a law professor at the Semarang-based Diponegoro University.

He cited Justice Adi's struggle to bring to light what he called rampant collusion in the Supreme Court.

"So strong were Adi's efforts to disclose the alleged collusion, that former chief justice Soerjono proposed to President Soeharto he be dismissed from his post as Deputy Chief Justice for General Crimes," he said.

Another example was the October reversal by Soerjono of Adi's ruling exonerating labor activist Muchtar Pakpahan of charges of inciting labor unrest in Medan, North Sumatra, in 1994.

"It is an example of how poor our legal system's performance is," said Satjipto, also a member of the National Commission on Human Rights.

"We can't help but think Soerjono's ruling reflected personal animosity toward Adi," he added.

Satjipto said he was not only concerned about the country's poor legal record, but also about the difficulties the country faced recruiting good and independent justices. He named former justices Zainal Asikin Kusumah Atmadja, Wirjono and Bismar Siregar, as well as Adi Andojo, as good justices.

Constitutional law expert Soehardjo, also from Diponegoro University, seconded Satjipto.

"I wish to challenge the Supreme Court, called this country's last bastion of justice, to live up to its name. We know already how many cases are left unprocessed at the Supreme Court," he said.

The Supreme Court has a backlog of more than 20,000 unprocessed cases.

Soehardjo called on the government and the House of Representatives to review the Law No. 14/1970 on Judicial Power, in order to improve the performance of Indonesian courts. (har/imn)