Suggestion to lawyers

I refer to the letter from Dr. Puspokusumo on July 1, 2000 titled Legal awareness must be fostered. Although phrased in language beloved of lawyers, I think I got the drift. Apart from the immediate problems of corruption in the court system, may I, as a user of legal services in Jakarta, offer my own suggestion for a legal shopping list, which the New Indonesia Lawyers Club may wish to consider.

* Plain language to be used in all legal drafting and decision- making.

* Better training and payment for judges at all levels.

* A proper doctrine of binding precedent giving some measure of predictability and consistency, case to case.

* Convince the customer that lawyers and judges have broadly consistent views on preliminary points of law.

* Make sure caseloads in the courts are properly administered; for example, sessions and hearings should take place in the court stated, at the appointed time.

* Resist, and hopefully reject, the American, (and increasingly European) view that whatever happens to you in life, it is always the fault of someone else who should be immediately sued in the courts for large sums of money.

* Resist the tendency for some of your profession, citing public interest, to use particular cases to "grandstand" for publicity, and possible political advantage, in the media and on television.

* Review and reduce legal hourly rates to more commercially acceptable levels. There is no reason I can see why an Indonesian lawyer practicing in Indonesia should be charging his time in a foreign currency instead of rupiah.

I hope that the New Indonesia Lawyers Club will be able to focus the mission statement set out in Dr. Puspokusumo's letter to create the changes and reforms that are so urgently required. Perhaps he could publish a list of lawyers who have signed up to this legal constitution, so that clients like myself could direct our business their way?

JOHN G. FLANNIGAN

Jakarta