Supreme Court blasted over reversal

Supreme Court blasted over reversal

JAKARTA (JP): The supreme court came under criticism yesterday for reversing its own earlier decision to award an Irianese man Rp 18.6 billion (about US$8.5 million) in compensation in a land dispute with the local government.

The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) said that the supreme court had again put its credibility in doubt because its reversal of the decision had no legal basis.

"The reversal of the decision shows that the Supreme Court is unable to make consistent decisions because, apparently, the judges do not have a common reference," YLBHI executive director Mulyana W. Kusumah said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post yesterday.

Chief Justice Soerjono has reportedly sent a letter to the district court of Jayapura, Irian Jaya, to the effect that the supreme court's verdict in favor of plaintiff Hanoch Hebe Ohee cannot be executed.

Soerjono said in the letter, dated April 5, 1995, that the defendant (the Irian Jaya provincial government) was not a public legal body "which has its own property."

The dispute over the 62 hectare plot of land, located about 30 kilometers from the Sentani Airport, began in 1984 when Ohee sought to regain the property controlled by the Irian government.

Ohee, who has spent no less than Rp 1 billion ($450,000) in the 10 year legal wrangle, claims that the property is communal land belonging to his clan since the 1940s.

He won the legal battle at the district court level in July 1985. After losing an appeal to the high court, the provincial government appealed to the supreme court in 1988 and lost again.

Irian Jaya governor Jacob Pattipi initially asserted his readiness to pay for the land. But last week he said that the government had only Rp 8 billion on hand and changed his mind.

A similar controversy occurred last year when the supreme court reversed its decision in favor of farmers in Kedungombo, Central Java, who had sought more than Rp 2 billion in compensation for the appropriation of their land by the government for a dam project.

Mulyana said that the argument that the Irian Jaya government was not a public legal entity that owns property was flimsy because, he said, there was no law on the matter.

Mulyana said that Soerjono's letter annulling the verdict in favor of Ohee was baseless because the chief justice had no authority to revoke the supreme court decision.

"The Chief Justice's letter also ignores legal procedure and disrespects substantive legal values which recognize people's social rights," he said. (pan)