Law and conscience
Law and conscience
The Jakarta metropolitan police deserve honors for arresting a
gang of brutal rapists in a village near Bekasi, 20 kilometers
southeast of here, on Wednesday. The 10 young men will face
charges of robbery and raping a housewife and her two underage
daughters after tying up the father in the same house.
If hearing is believing, the police this time have worked
professionally, without trying to extract confessions by illegal
means. Instead, good detective work and modern laboratory
technology were fully utilized. The 100-member police team
working on the case labored day and night until results were
obtained. The suspects were released soon after they were taken
into custody, but were arrested again later after the officers
had acquired enough evidence to support the charges.
The robbery and gang rape in Bekasi have sent shock waves
through many parts of this country. President Soeharto, shocked
to hear of the increase in the rate of brutal crimes, has urged
the authorities to put a stop to the trend. People from all walks
of life have condemned the rapists and expressed sympathy for the
family. Oddly, nothing has been heard from any of our women's
organizations.
Sadly, additional rape cases have already been reported since
the Bekasi tragedy, a sign that rapists do not feel threatened by
the existing law and much less by the public's anger. The
problem, then, is how to curb the apparently rising tide of
barbarism. Minister of Women's Roles Mien Sugandhi said last week
that rapists deserved the death penalty and experts have written
articles discussing this most loathsome attack on women from
various points of view. Jurists have reminded the nation that our
law on rape needs to be revamped to include a suitable minimum
jail term for rapists.
Fury and rage, however, will not solve this social problem.
Judges also need to be awakened to the gravity of rape, whose
victims and their families can be traumatized for life. Despite
the age of the victims or the brutality of the rape, judges have
rarely, if ever, handed down the maximum 12-year prison sentence
for rape.
In the past, court verdicts were typically not criticized by
the public. After all, judges are free within the boundaries of
the law to use their good sense. Now, however, what if this runs
against the public's sense of justice? As things stand at
present, nobody seems to have the authority to answer this
question.
Common sense, however, rules that even a judge's conscience
must have an acceptable standard. So, as many people see it,
judges must not be too lenient and hand down sentences that
perhaps nobody but themselves can understand.