Students lose suit and hope

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta State Administrative Court yesterday ordered five university students to pay court fees totaling Rp 34,000 after their complaint of discrimination against the Attorney General's Office was dismissed.

In January, the five law students from Muhammadiyah University in Surakarta had filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General's Office, indicting the institution for being discriminatory in its recruitment policy.

The policy dictated that only state university graduates were invited to apply to the General Attorney's office for prosecutor positions.

A team of judges led by Tengku Abdurrahman Husny said in their verdict read on Monday that the five students, representing the student body, were not fully qualified to question the policy because they are not university graduates who might have been disadvantaged by the so called discriminative recruitment policy.

Last year there was a controversy over qualifications for judges and prosecutors. Reports said only those of a certain height would be considered. (14)