Singing justice handles Marsinah's case

Singing justice handles Marsinah's case

By T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): "I'm crazy for feeling so lonely/ I'm crazy for
feeling so blue/ I knew you'd love me as long as you wanted me/
but you left for somebody new."

The lyrics filled the air as Deputy Chief Justice for Criminal
Affairs Adi Andojo Soetjipto sang his favorite song, Crazy.

"Crazy was first sung by Patsy Cline. Later Julio Iglesias
also sang the song," he told The Jakarta Post.

The justice, who obviously loves singing, recently made the
historic decision to acquit nine people earlier convicted of
brutally killing labor activist Marsinah. The controversial
decision to free the accused was made along with associate
justices Karlinah Palmini Achmad Soebroto and Tomy Boestomi.

For Soetjipto music is the best remedy to relieve the stress
of work. He has hundreds of cassettes and dozens of CDs, but a
simple sound system.

"My sound system equipment is not sophisticated and I don't
have a special music room. I listen to the songs in my bed room,
before I sleep," he said.

Born on April 11, 1932 in Yogyakarta, Soetjipto started
singing when he was a little boy.

"When I wanted to sing, I climbed up a blimbing (star fruit)
tree in the yard and sang loudly," he recalled.

He joined the choir at elementary school and took part in a
district song contest. His group came first, but they lost at the
regency level.

"I don't know why our teacher did not train us to practice
prior to the regency level contest. I cried when we lost," he
recalled.

Soetjipto played the violin at junior high school and the
guitar when he was a senior high school student in Surabaya. He
was the first guitarist of the Hawaiian Swingers, a group at his
school.

"We performed at weddings. I remember earning the first fee of
Rp 17. I gave it to my mother," he said.

At the university, he accompanied Ebet Kadarusman on his
guitar in a contest and placed second. Kadarusman is now a host
of a TV talk show on RCTI.

Soetjipto majored in law at the University of Indonesia
because he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and become
a judge.

"I had dreamed of becoming a judge since I was still in the
elementary school. At that time, I often put the title Mr.
(Mister in de Rechten or Master of Law) in front of my name," he
said.

But the Ministry of Education and Culture, which had provided
Soetjipto with a scholarship, assigned him to the legal bureau of
the Ministry of Health in 1958. After negotiating for an hour,
officials at the ministry agreed to allow Soetjipto to register
at the Supreme Court as a judge.

Soetjipto was then sent to the Madiun District Court in East
Java to start his judicial career.

"The first case I handled was a gambling case. But, I made a
mistake because I detained all of the defendants," he said.

The defendants were sent to court under an ordinance which
carried a less-than-three month jail term. According to the law,
a defendant should not be put under detention if the possible
jail term is less than three months.

"The defense lawyer, Soemarno P. Wirjanto, lodged a protest to
the Supreme Court, which later ordered the release of the
defendants," Soetjipto said.

"I was embarrassed and I will never forget it. I told myself I
would make no more mistakes," he said.

A few months later, he was transferred to the Ponorogo
District Court in East Java. In 1960 he was appointed chief of
the Bojonegoro District Court, also in East Java, replacing his
own father.

When West Irian, now Irian Jaya, was being made into the 26th
province of Indonesia in 1963, Soetjipto volunteered to serve in
the troubled area.

He was among several judges who tried members from the
Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Movement) separatist group
on subversion charges. Due to the lack of civil judges, a
military judge was asked to help try the cases, according to
Soetjipto.

In 1967, at the age of 35, Soetjipto was promoted to chief of
the Irian Jaya High Court. Two years later he was assigned as a
rector at the local Cendrawasih University. He said many students
at the time didn't agree with the integration of Irian Jaya into
Indonesia.

"I sent anti-Indonesia students the Satya Wacana Christian
University in Salatiga, Central Java. It worked. Upon their
return from Salatiga, they were not against the government
anymore," he said.

In 1970 he transferred the post at the university to August
Marpaung, who was later appointed Indonesian Ambassador to
Australia, and moved to Semarang to serve as deputy chief of the
Central Java High Court.

After four years, he was promoted to chief of the Bandung High
Court, where there was a backlog of hundreds of cases. During his
term of office, he finished handling all of the cases.

Soetjipto started as a judge at the Supreme Court in 1981. In
the following year, he became the Deputy Chief Justice for
Criminal Affairs, a post he still holds.

He has made a number of legal breakthroughs, including in the
area of smuggling. In 1983 he ruled that a defendant should be
declared guilty of smuggling if he or she had the intention to do
so.

Before issuing a new ruling, prosecutors must prove that the
defendant in a smuggling case had the intention to smuggle, and
that the defendant had executed the foiled smuggling activities.
Even though a person had the intention to smuggle an item, the
court might release them if they didn't carry out the smuggling
activities.

This was what happened to a businessman who transported five
kilograms of gold from Jakarta to Tanjung Pinang in Riau. He put
the gold bars in used battery boxes with false documents. The
Tanjung Pinang authorities thought he was planning to smuggle the
gold bars to Singapore and sent him to court.

But the defendant was freed because he had not actually
smuggled anything.

Soetjipto, who examined the case, decided on Feb. 28, 1983
that the defendant was guilty and ordered the gold bars
confiscated.

The decision has become a popular jurisprudence, followed by
judges in the lower courts.

In 1987 he ruled that the defendants in certain cases, such as
brutal murders, rape and narcotics, could remain in custody after
the official detention time had expired.

Soetjipto denied that the ruling was against human rights.

"If a man accused of committing a cold-blood murder is at
large, people might become restless," he argued.

Soetjipto believes that the public's right to be protected
outweighs the individual rights of a defendant.

In 1988 the justice issued a ruling aimed at discouraging
corruption.

Under the Corruption Law, a court could order a defendant to
pay compensation or spend additional time in prison if the
defendant couldn't pay.

Based on the 1988 Supreme Court ruling, compensation can't be
substituted with jail. If the defendant fails to pay, the
defendant's heirs are held responsible for paying the debt.

"I made the decision to deter corruptors," he said.

Yet the number of corruption cases has risen. The Attorney
General's Office reported 360 cases in the 1994/1995 fiscal year
compared to 315 cases in 1993/1994 and 293 in 1991/1992.

Change

After almost forty years as a judge, Soetjipto says there has
been a change in attitude among judges.

"My father always told me to become an honest judge and not to
ask something from the case I handle. Today, there are judges who
ask (for money). It is difficult to prove, but this happens," he
said.

Soetjipto says he doesn't accept gifts from people involved in
cases he handles, even after the decision is made. But, he
tolerates judges and justices who accept gifts as long as they
don't ask for them.

"In this age, things won't work if we are too strict," he
said.

There are more than 3,000 judges in Indonesia. Like other
civil servants, judges swear that they will not receive anything
in connection with their position.

Soetjipto said that in the 1960s he never heard of judges
accepting bribes.

"I don't really know when it started. It took me by surprise,"
he said.

"I became aware about such things when I was the Bandung High
Court Chief," he added.

Th public have often complained about bribery in courts,
especially those in big cities. People call it the "court mafia".

Expressing his concern about reports of unscrupulous judges,
Soetjipto calls on judges to be patient and not to expect things
which are out of reach.

"If God permits, the time will come when you can afford a good
car and a house," he said.

Starting from January this year, the government increased the
basic salary of judges by 100 percent. They will now earn between
Rp 300,000 and Rp 1,075,200 a month.

A senior justice gets more than Rp 4 million.

"The first time I bought a brand new car was in 1993,"
Soetjipto said.

He now owns two cars, a 1993 Suzuki Esteem and an older Toyota
van.

Recalling the hard times, Soetjipto said that early in the
1970s, when he was the deputy chief of the Semarang High Court,
he sold the clothes he got at Idul Fitri to make ends meet.

"I also remember when, along with my son, I went from one shop
to another, trying to sell my tape recorder," he said.

Soetjipto married Tuti Sirdariati in 1960 and they have two
sons and two daughters. The eldest son is a physician, the first
daughter runs a pre-school and teaches music, the second daughter
has just graduated from a computer college, while the youngest
son is still studying international law at a private university.

A proud father and a happy grandfather of two, he lives with
his wife, their youngest child and dozens of animals in a big
house with a spacious garden in the Supreme Court housing complex
in Pejaten, South Jakarta. There are dozens of birds, including
birds of paradise, peacocks and several ducks, and a monkey.

"I used to have a deer, which I got from my father-in-law. But
it died," he said.

One of the birds was a gift from a businessman.

"It (the gift) had nothing to do with the case I handled.
Maybe he gave it to me as an investment with a hope that someday
I can help if he has a legal problem. I don't know, I can't read
people's mind."

"But judges do not live in an ivory tower. We need friends,"
he said.

Even though he loves birds, Soetjipto eats them -- but not the
ones he keeps.

"I like burung dara goreng (fried pigeon)," he said.

He does not eat out a lot. If he does, he always takes his
family to have Indonesian or Chinese food and sometimes Western
dishes.

"But I don't have good appetite now," he said without
explaining why.

A member of the International Board of Directors of the Asia
Crime Prevention Foundation, Soetjipto was a visiting expert for
the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention
of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1989.

He had just returned from the United Nations' headquarters in
New York to discuss the plan to establish an International
Criminal Court when this interview was conducted. The plan was
initiated by the International Law Commission, which drafted the
code of crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind.

"Once the court is set up, it can try serious cases like
genocide in Rwanda," he said.

Soetjipto wrote about justice in Indonesia in a book entitled
Criminal Justice Profiles in Asia, published in Japan by Far East
Institute earlier this year. Copies of the book were distributed
to participants of last month's UN Conference on the Prevention
of Crime in Cairo.

"Indonesia has a good criminal justice system, which highly
respects human rights. It is the implementation which is
sometimes against human right the principles," he said.

Soetjipto, however, believes that some law enforcers, who have
stepped out of the line, will realize their wrongdoings and
return to the right track.

"I don't know whether I will be still alive when this
happens," he said.

Maybe this explains his loss of appetite.