Lawyer warned over ads
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta
An ethics council set up by the Indonesian Bar Association (Ikadin) strongly reprimanded renowned lawyer and human rights activist Todung Mulya Lubis on Monday for publicizing a court verdict by running ads in three national printed media.
The council considered the ads run by Todung's law firm in The Jakarta Post, Bisnis Indonesia and Kompas dailies in August 2002 -- publicizing PT Holdiko Perkasa's court victory over the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) -- unethical, as they were printed before copies of the verdict had been received by the conflicting parties.
The ads were designed based on the law firm's audio-visual records of the court proceedings.
Todung's Lubis, Santosa and Maulana law firm represented PT Holdiko in the trial against the KPPU, over a ruling by the antimonopoly watchdog that imposed a Rp 5 billion (US$537,634) fine on the company.
In response to the warning, Todung's defense lawyers said it was in violation of Law No. 18/2003 on lawyers.
"The warning was too harsh, as we don't see there were strong ethical problems involved. Besides, the ethics council wasn't set up according to the law on lawyers, which stipulates that the council should also comprise legal experts," Todung's defense lawyer Maqdir Ismail said.
The five-member ethics council consists of career lawyers: Sudjono, Ronggo Hutagalung, Artono, Henry Yosodiningrat and Hotma Sitompoel.
Another defense lawyer for Todung, Bambang Widjojanto, regretted that his client was warned while, according to him, a more serious violation of the lawyers' code of ethics had earlier been committed by another lawyer.
"Lawyer Elza Syarief was given a more lenient penalty when she was caught lying about Tommy," Bambang said.
He was referring to the investigation of Elza by the police over her false statement about the whereabouts of former president Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra. Tommy is currently serving a 15-year prison term on the Nusa Kambangan prison island in Central Java for masterminding the killing of a supreme justice.