Public called on to accept death of 'Tempo' weekly

JAKARTA (JP): Law experts called on the public yesterday to accept the death of Tempo magazine following the Supreme Court's reversal of a lower court's decision that would have allowed the newsweekly to resume publication.

Tempo's closure is final now that the Court has decided that the government has every right to revoke any publishing license that it grants, they argued.

Satjipto Rahardjo, Soehardjo and Ali Mufiz -- all from Semarang's Diponegoro University -- agreed that the public should respect the Supreme Court decision that was handed down on Thursday.

"Let's hope that the decision came from the justices' conscience without any external pressure," said Satjipto, who is also a member of the National Commission on Human Rights.

The government shut down Tempo in 1994 for reasons of "editorial content" which were never specifically mentioned. Another two weeklies, Editor and DeTIK, were closed at the same time for "administrative violations".

Tempo's chief editor Goenawan Mohamad then sued the government for closing his magazine. The State Administrative Court and the State Administrative High Court decided in his favor last year.

The Supreme Court said Thursday that the banning was legal and not in conflict with the press law as the lower courts had maintained.

Chief Justice Soerjono said Thursday the information minister had the authority to revoke the magazine's publishing license if the terms under which the permit was issued were not upheld.

Soerjono said both the Jakarta Administrative Court and the Jakarta State Administrative High Court were inconsistent in their legal arguments when they made the rulings in favor of Tempo.

"Regardless of whether or not the decision was objective, the public should uphold it because it was made by a team of justices headed by the chief justice," Soehardjo said.

"It seems that this is the end of Tempo. There is nothing one can do to help it," said Mufiz.

He said that it would be possible for Goenawan to seek a fresh trial, even though the move would probably be useless.

The Supreme Court's decision in favor of the government was reacted to strongly by numerous legal observers and activists on Thursday, who charged that the long-awaited verdict was meant to please the political elite. They added that the decision will only encourage the government to tighten its control of the mass media.

Yesterday, chief of the Yogyakarta branch of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Budi Santoso said the Supreme Court's verdict "insulted the public's sense of justice."

Budi said that the Court's argument that the revocation of Tempo's publishing license was not against the law amounted to a "hypocritical statement" and an insult to the public's intelligence.

The decision, they said, will only lead to further confusion about the meaning of a "free but responsible press", a slogan the government regularly trumpets.

"The rules of the game are increasingly vague," Budi said.

Separately, communication expert Dedy Mulyana from Pajajaran University in Bandung said the Supreme Court's decision was a show of bureaucratic solidarity.

"It is something basic to safeguard the government's image," Dedy told The Jakarta Post.

He said Goenawan's legal suit served as "shock therapy" for the government. In the future, he said, the government may have to think twice before closing down a publication.

The moral lesson from the Tempo affair, he said, is that there is still a long way to go before freedom of the press is achieved in Indonesia.

The chairman of the Association of Indonesian Journalists (PWI), Sofjan Lubis, dismissed the suggestion that the Supreme Court ruling is undermining press freedom.

"PWI believes that the government will continue to guarantee and develop press freedom and openness within the existing rules and in line with current demands," Sofjan was quoted as saying by Antara yesterday.

Minister of Information Harmoko, who petitioned the Supreme Court after losing the battle in two lower courts, called on all parties to respect the ruling.

"Indonesia is a state that uphold the supremacy of law. We should all respect and uphold the law," Harmoko said. (har/17/swe/pan)