Power, money rule RI's judiciary: Experts

Bernie K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With a United Nations fact-finding mission yet to set foot on Indonesian soil, legal experts said it would likely find here a judiciary far from being independent, and hostage to money and politics.

Legal expert Harkristuti Harkrisnowo of the University of Indonesia said corruption, and government and legislative interference were commonplace in the Indonesian courts.

"We know how bad things are here, the police, prosecutors, lawyers and judges," Harkristuti said over the weekend.

So does the government. At its request, the UN will send its special rapporteur Dato' Param Cumaraswamy from July 15 to July 25 on a mission to assess the country's legal system.

He will report his findings to the UN Human Rights Commission during its annual session in April 2003.

But even before he has to arrive in Jakarta, the international community is already well aware of Indonesia's poor track record.

The stream of bad news that has flowed out of the country's commercial court has deterred foreign investors. And the UN has persistently asked for headway to be made in the human rights tribunal on atrocities committed during the 1999 East Timor violence.

Cumaraswamy's planned mission comes at a time when the Jakarta Commercial Court has once again drawn international attention with its controversial bankruptcy ruling against insurance firm PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife Indonesia (AJMI) of Canada.

AJMI's downfall is yet another clear example of Indonesia's imploding legal system. Other examples abound. Last year, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) stumbled over what it charged were fictitious creditors blocking its attempt to have a local company declared bankrupt.

Subsequently, the IFC suspended its investments here while its affiliate, the World Bank, trimmed its lending to Indonesia.

Such cases have made investors wary, making it hard for the government to attract them amid an already adverse business climate. Political instability and rampant security threats are other risks investors are trying to avoid when they decide not to come here.

Bankruptcy law expert Rahmat Bastian said that just about every case that went to the Commercial Court ended up disadvantaging foreign investors.

All of which helps to explain why foreign companies try to seek justice outside Indonesia whenever possible. Such moves are already bearing fruit. Singaporean and U.S. courts have issued orders to freeze Indonesian assets, something virtually unheard of in the local courts.

Rahmat said that he saw the judges during the Soeharto era dispensing fairer justice then they do now. "Today it seems as if there is no need to be ashamed when taking sides."

While this was apparent in cases where bribery took place, he said that in cases filed against the government, the judges too tended to side with the government. "The government almost never looses a case logged in the State Administrative Court," he said.

According to him, judges appear not to care much about whether their verdicts were justifiable.

Harkristuti added that some judges felt they could translate the law the way they saw fit. She said it did happen that judges passed opposing verdicts in two identical cases.

"We're loosing the parameters that defines justice," she said.

She said the Indonesian courts were also prone to government interference as a consequence of politics coming in the way.

Lack of independence, critics said, was also evident in the case of Indonesia's human rights tribunal. The trial against military officials implicated in the 1999 violence in East Timor, they said, had come under pressure from the military.

Legislator Muhammad Abdul Mochtar said he hoped Indonesia could make the most of Cumaraswamy's visit.

"What we need is thorough legal reforms," said Mochtar, a member of the House of Representatives' Commission II, which is in charge of home and legal affairs.