Law held in contempt

The way our legal system has bungled the Tommy Soeharto affair has sent a chilling message that, not only does crime in this country pay, but that if you ever find yourself on the wrong side of the law, it pays to evade the law altogether. Judging from Tommy's case, you're not going to be worse off if you are ever arrested after escaping from the law. It's certainly worth a try.

Until his arrest on Wednesday, businessman Hutomo Mandala Putra, the son of former president Soeharto, had eluded the law on more than one count. He fled last year on the day he was supposed to begin his 18-month jail sentence for corruption. In August, he defied summonses by the police who wanted to question him in connection with a series of crimes, including murder.

Now that he has been nabbed, the police do not appear to have the slightest intention of punishing the billionaire businessman for evading the law. Police are only questioning Tommy in connection with the murder of justice M. Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, illegal possession of firearms, and a series of bombings in Jakarta. This is in defiance of a government order that Tommy should be investigated for evading the law.

In other words, the police are going to let Tommy off the hook for absconding from their own hands.

Surely, if there was anything that could make Tommy's arrest stick today and put him in jail, albeit temporarily, it should be his behavior, which represents nothing less than contempt for the law. If our law enforcement agencies do not regard this as a punishable crime, then they are sending a message to all criminals and would-be criminals out there that they should do what Tommy did if the police ever catch up with them.

Tommy's latest escape from the corruption charge is another illustration of how messy our legal system is. His case has been overturned so many times that we have almost lost count.

He was first acquitted by the South Jakarta District Court of a corruption charge in a land fraud case. The Supreme Court later overturned the ruling and sentenced him to 18 months in jail. In desperation, Tommy sought a pardon from then president Abdurrahman Wahid, and even tried, unsuccessfully, to cut a deal in two secret meetings. When this request was turned down, he applied for a case review with the Supreme Court, even though he had implied he was guilty when he sought the presidential pardon. To confuse matters further, the Supreme Court accepted his request to have the case reviewed, and in August exonerated him of the corruption charge. If that were not confusing enough, the Attorney General's Office has now asked the Supreme Court to overturn its own ruling.

It is not our intention here to discuss the substance of the case -- few people in this country cared whether Tommy was guilty of a $11 million graft, which is chicken feed compared to the billions he amassed through the privileges and preferential treatment he enjoyed when he was still the son of an omnipotent president. It has always been our view that the government was wrong to have picked the Goro Goro land case, when it could have gone for the more celebrated and larger fraud cases, like Tommy's Timor car project or his cloves monopoly.

Yet for such an insignificant case to have created so much confusion in our legal system says a lot about the system itself: It's simply one big mess.

The Goro Goro case raises the question of when a legal battle actually ends. Should it be after the President rules on whether or not to grant a pardon? This surely is the last channel for reprieve a person could resort to. Or should it be when the Supreme Court hands down its ruling after a review of the case? And since when can the Supreme Court ignore a clear admission of guilt in considering a case?

The Goro Goro case has been overturned so many times that it is no longer a question of seeking truth and justice, which admittedly must be an endless process. The Tommy Soeharto affair has now become nothing more than a legal play thing. This is a travesty of the law that has created even more uncertainty about the legal system in this country.

Tommy has his own reasons for having contempt for the law, but there is no excuse for the police, the government attorneys and the judges to be contemptible of the law they are supposed to enforce and administer.