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.