RI's legal system not independent: Megawati's lawyers
RI's legal system not independent: Megawati's lawyers
JAKARTA (JP): A team of lawyers who have been waging a losing
battle for Megawati Soekarnoputri, the toppled leader of the
Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), accused the Indonesian
judicial system as being a mere extension of the government.
The Public Defenders for Indonesian Democracy (TPDI), led by
R.O. Tambunan, said at a press conference here yesterday that the
Indonesian court system was neither independent nor impartial.
He cited how politically related trials invariably concluded
with the courts ruling in favor of the government.
"(Indonesian) judges are neither independent nor free from the
government's influence, so their judgments cannot be considered
as fair decisions," Tambunan said.
The team expressed concern that public confidence in the legal
system had declined to a dangerously low level, citing that the
situation could force people to seek their own justice and take
the law into their own hands.
Tambunan said that 95 percent of the 65 lawsuits that the team
filed for Megawati and her supporters had been rejected in courts
across the country.
Most district courts argued in their rejections that they did
not have the authority to hear the lawsuits, or that the issues
involved an internal dispute to be settled by the split party
itself.
Megawati, the eldest daughter of Indonesia's founding
president Sukarno, has sued the government and the military over
a PDI rebel congress in the North Sumatra capital of Medan in
June last year which dismissed her from the party leadership. The
congress elected Soerjadi as the new PDI chairman.
She named Soerjadi and the congress' organizers, Minister of
Home Affairs Yogie S.M., Armed Forces Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung
and National Police Chief Gen. Dibyo Widodo, as defendants.
Supporters from various PDI branches filed similar lawsuits
across the country.
Legislature
Separately, the Center for Information and Development
Studies, a think-tank affiliated with the Association of
Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI), said yesterday that the
country had not made any progress in strengthening the national
legislature this year.
The center's legal expert, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said in a
year-end press conference that none of the 32 bills passed by the
House of Representatives over the year, were initiated by the
legislative body itself.
Yusril said the House had over the past five years introduced
only two bills -- one on the Mataram mayoralty and another on the
1993 state budget. He also said the legislation produced in the
House tended to uphold the status quo rather than accommodate
public aspirations.
"The legislative program (to strengthen the legislature) in
1997 didn't work," said Yusril, who is also a lecturer at the
University of Indonesia's law school.
He called for a dialog among experts and intellectuals to
decide which legislative efforts were of the highest priority.
"It (cooperation) is needed to help (the House and the
government) come up with legislation that is really needed by the
people, instead of legislation which opens doors for officials to
commit corruption," he said.
He accused the government of submitting only bills that were
inconsequential, and failing to submit important ones. He cited a
bill to amend the country's Criminal Code Procedures, which had
been ready since 1993, had yet to be submitted by the government
to the House.
He also cited a much-needed bill to amend the existing anti-
corruption law.
On the other hand, he said, a bill on courts for juvenile
legal offenders, which "was not urgent", was sent to the House to
be deliberated. The bill was passed in 1996, but had yet to be
endorsed by President Soeharto following a fierce debate from the
country's Moslem community.
"In this case, we need transparency (from the government) to
explain why the much-needed bills are not made a priority and how
the House members as public representatives respond to it," he
said. "We can't let this situation continue." (10/aan)