Students decry Court's decisions

JAKARTA (JP): About 20 students of University of Indonesia demonstrated yesterday against a series of controversial Supreme Court decisions.

The Supreme Court's secretary general, Mangatas Nasution, was accommodating of the protest by university law school students.

The latest decision which touched off the student protest was one in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of North Sumatra prosecutors who sought to annul the court's verdict releasing labor leader Muchtar Pakpahan.

The students blame Soerjono, the chief justice who retired Nov. 1 and was replaced by Sarwata, for the decisions.

"Soerjono's decisions have tainted the Supreme Court's image," student spokesman Said Zaidansyah said. "What Soerjono did was in contradiction to what we learn from books."

The criminal code procedures state that prosecutors cannot seek review in cases where a suspect is released unconditionally by the Supreme Court.

The protesting students also disagree with a 1995 Supreme Court decision in which Soerjono ruled in favor of the Irian Jaya provincial administration in a land dispute.

But the law students have faith that the change in court leadership will bring positive changes to the court.

"We hope the new chief justice will be willing to review the decisions that have betrayed the public's sense of justice," Zaidansyah said. (08)