Supreme Court rulling allows police to probe Newmont
Supreme Court rulling allows police to probe Newmont
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Police will push ahead with their pollution
investigation against PT Newmont Minahasa Raya after the Supreme
Court announced on Thursday that it had found against the United
States-based mining firm.
The court said the police investigation of six executives of
Newmont on charges of polluting Buyat Bay in South Minahasa
regency, North Sulawesi, was legal, clearing the way for the
suspects to face trial.
During a pre-trial hearing last December, the South Jakarta
District Court dismissed a request for court proceedings against
the executives -- two Americans, an Australian and three
Indonesians, arguing that the police had failed to notify the
environment ministry that they intended to arrest the executives.
Supreme Court spokesman Hasbi Yunda said the country's highest
court had overruled the lower court's rule, which appeared set to
force the authorities to shelve the case against Newmont.
"The Supreme Court has ruled that the detention of the Newmont
executives was legal," he was quoted by AP as saying. "It also
ruled that the police can now continue their questioning and
investigation of the suspects," he added.
Yunda did not explain the reasons for the ruling. The Supreme
Court, which meets behind closed doors, handed down the decision
on Monday.
In response, lawyers for Newmont rejected the latest ruling as
being "legally flawed", arguing that the ruling handed down by
the district court could not be appealed to the Supreme Court.
"Based on Law No. 5 of 2004, the Supreme Court can't accept an
appeal against a lower court's decision during a pre-trial
hearing," Newmont senior legal advisor Mochammad Kasmali told The
Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Another lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan similarly said earlier on
Wednesday it would be "a tragedy" for the country's judicial
system if it was true that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor
of the police.
The court would clearly be violating the law if it accepted
the police's appeal, he claimed.
"Supreme Court Chief Justice Bagir Manan was quoted in media
reports published on Aug. 7 last year as saying that a decision
in a pre-trial hearing could not be appealed. What if he now
accepts the police appeal. This would be a display of double
standards," Luhut said.
Police said on Thursday they had completed their
investigations of the Newmont executives and would now formally
hand over the case files to prosecutors, who are expected to
charge the men soon.
The suspects are accused of corporate crimes in connection
with the alleged polluting of Buyat Bay. If found guilty, they
could face up to 15 years in jail.
The government announced last week it was suing Newmont for
US$133.6 million in damages for the alleged pollution.
State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar has said
that this amount had been calculated based on the environmental
damage allegedly caused by the firm.
"The calculation includes the cost of rehabilitating the
coastal areas, for example," he said.
The government's determination to press charges against
Newmont has cheered green activists, who have long complained
that foreign mining operations in Indonesia skirt environmental
laws. But it risks spooking investors who complain that
Indonesia's legal system and police are inefficient and corrupt.
Different tests on the Buyat Bay's waters have produced a
plethora of conflicting results.
The World Health Organization and an initial environment
ministry report found no evidence that the bay's waters were
polluted. But a subsequent ministry study found arsenic levels in
the seabed were 100 times higher at the dumping site than in
other parts of the bay.
Newmont stopped mining two years ago at the Sulawesi mine
after extracting all the gold it could, but kept processing ore
there until Aug. 31, 2004, when the mine was permanently closed.