Supreme Court reverses ruling on land dispute

JAKARTA (JP): The Supreme Court has reversed its own ruling on the highly political Kedung Ombo land dispute, and has now ruled in favor of the government which is being sued by 34 displaced villagers.

The latest Supreme Court position was announced to the press yesterday by outgoing Chief Justice Purwoto Gandasubrata on the day he handed over the post to his successor Soerjono.

Earlier, Purwoto and the Court were lauded by various political and legal circles on the first ruling which ordered the government to pay compensation to the villagers whose lands were procured by the state for the huge reservoir in Kedung Ombo, Central Java.

The court ruling finally granted compensation at Rp 50,000 a square meter, more than the Rp 10,000 sought by the villagers and much more than the Rp 4,000 the government was willing to offer. On top of that, the court then ordered the government to pay Rp 2 billion ($952,000) in "non-material" losses to the farmers.

The two lower courts before also passed rulings in favor of the government.

The reversal came after the government, in this case the Central Java Provincial Government and the Ministry of Public Works, applied for a review of the case with the Supreme Court.

"On Oct. 29 we decided to accept the appeal of the Central Java provincial administration and to reject the plaintiffs' lawsuit," Purwoto told reporters after the hand-over ceremony.

All is not lost for the villagers however.

The Court has ordered the government to set the compensation rate for their property in accordance with the going "market value". This means new negotiations between the two contending parties.

Purwoto said the decision to reverse the ruling was made because the Supreme Court had failed to take into account a 1993 presidential decree on setting a compensation rate for land acquired by the government. Instead, the Court had based its decision on a 1975 ministerial decree which had been superseded by the 1993 ruling.

"We also feel that the earlier Supreme Court ruling was wrong because the presiding judge set the compensation rate higher than what the villagers had sought," Purwoto said.

Purwoto, who says he is retiring from public office because he has reached the mandatory age of 65 set for judges, also added that the villagers could still appeal to the Supreme Court.

He said all the parties connected with the case will soon be notified of the Court's latest decision.

His announcement came as the villagers, who are represented by the vocal Legal Aid Foundation, continued pressing the Supreme Court to order the government to execute the ruling.

Petition

The government has refused to obliged, stressing that it will wait for the outcome of its petition asking for a review of the case with the Supreme Court.

The government has another reason for not wanting to pay up: the prospect of some 60,000 families, who already have accepted the compensation, demanding the same treatment as the 34 villages.

The Central Java administration has also resisted pressure to pay up until after the review, saying that it had to protect the interests of the people and taxpayers in the country. (imn)