Supreme Court under fire over 'Tempo' verdict

Supreme Court under fire over 'Tempo' verdict

JAKARTA (JP): Observers suspect that "political games" were
behind the Supreme Court's decision to overturn yesterday a
decision by the High Court allowing Indonesia's oldest magazine,
Tempo, to resume publication after being banned by the government
in 1994.

M. Budhyatna, dean of University of Indonesia's School of
Social and Political Sciences, charged that the Supreme Court had
not acted independently when making the decision. Instead, the
Court had made the decision to please some elements in the
political elite, he said.

"There must have been a political game behind the Supreme
Court's verdict, some sort of an effort by the government to keep
from losing a face," he told The Jakarta Post.

Chief Justice Soerjono announced yesterday that the Minister
of Information's decision to annul the publishing license of
Tempo in 1994 was not against the law. This verdict thus
overturned the decision by the Jakarta Administrative High Court,
which had allowed the magazine to resume publication.

The lawsuit against the minister's decree was filed by former
Tempo employees. "There are enough reasons to grant the appeal by
the information minister and overturn the decision by the Jakarta
Administrative High Court," Soerjono said.

When it closed down the publication, the Ministry of
Information said the magazine's proprietor repeatedly ignored
warnings from the government about its editorial content.

Budhyatna charged that the Supreme Court might have taken the
decision in order to please some elements in the political elite
who were infuriated by the magazine's bold reporting.

"It's the political elite group who wanted to have Tempo
closed down, on the pretext that it had disrupted national
stability and unity with its editorial content," Budhyatna said.

Budhyatna, however, said he was not surprised over the defeat
Tempo suffered. "There haven't been any records in Indonesian
history of the government being defeated in court," he said.

Andi Muis, a professor of law at Hasanuddin University in
Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, expressed a similar suspicion. He
told the Post that there must have been "non-legal factors"
influencing the Court.

He said that the government might have feared it would lose
face if Tempo's employees won the lawsuit. "The government was
probably afraid that it would lose its credibility by accepting
defeat," he said.

Andi expressed his concern over the ruling. "I'm afraid the
verdict will encourage the government to tighten control over and
pressure the press," he said.

The chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation,
Bambang Widjojanto, said the verdict reflected a failure on the
part of the government to protect people's rights to express
their opinions through the mass media.

"The verdict is a negation of people's rights, something which
is guaranteed by the Constitution," Bambang said in a press
statement.

Bambang also accused the Supreme Court of endorsing the
government in abusing its power. "The Court has set a bad
milestone in Indonesia's legal history," he said.

Meanwhile, an unrecognized association of journalists
established by former reporters and supporters of Tempo following
its closure also criticized the Supreme Court.

Satrio Arismunandar, secretary-general of the Alliance of
Independent Journalists, said the credibility of the Court, as
the highest legal authority in the country, should now be
questioned.

"The Supreme Court has failed to prove that it's an
independent legal institution," he said.

Bambang also questioned yesterday some technicalities in the
verdict. For instance, he said, the judges have failed to define
what they meant by "disturbing national stability".

"I failed to find arguments supporting the judges' statement
that the magazine's content disturbed national stability," he
said. (imn/16/20)