Supreme Court under fire over Tommy ruling
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Supreme Court's decision to overrule Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra's conviction and 18-month jail sentence betrays the public's sense of justice, legal observers said on Tuesday.
The court's decision is a calamity for the effort to uphold the law and will set a bad precedent for law enforcement, according to Hendardi, chairman of the Legal Aid and Human Rights Association.
"This decision will only erode the public's already wafer-thin trust in the justice system," Hendardi told The Jakarta Post.
Former minister of justice and human rights Mahfud MD concurred and said that the court's decision hurt the people's sense of justice.
"The Supreme Court's decision is against and nullifies the people's sense of justice," Mahfud, a legal expert from the Yogyakarta Islamic University, said in Yogyakarta.
He contended that the court had sought only loopholes and not justice in the Tommy case.
"Therefore, the orientation of our legal system must be changed from concentrating on formal procedural grounds to upholding justice so that legal, procedural matters become secondary to the serving of justice," Mahfud told Antara.
Meanwhile, Vice President Hamzah Haz called on the people to respect the Supreme Court's decision on Tommy.
"We have to respect the decision of that institution," he said after opening a meeting of West Kalimantan businessmen in Jakarta.
When asked about the people's feeling of justice, Hamzah said, "Don't talk about feelings of justice. We have to respect the decision of the Supreme Court."
He noted that if the justices were wrong in their decision about Tommy, they would be held responsible by God in the "hereafter."
Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra confirmed that the government would respect the Supreme Court decision, saying that the government could not interfere in the case.
"As the government, we have to respect the court's decision. Moreover, it has been handed down by the highest judicial institution," he said.
According to Hendardi, the Supreme Court had made two fundamental errors in freeing Tommy.
The first mistake, said Hendardi, was that the court had disregarded the fact that Tommy had admitted his guilt by seeking a presidential pardon. Thus, the review of the case was a mistake from the outset.
"The Supreme Court cannot review a case where the convicted party has admitted his guilt," Hendardi told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta.
The second mistake was that the Supreme Court had declared innocent a fugitive who had flouted the ruling of the court.
"The implications of this case will encourage prisoners to run away from jail while their lawyers seek a review of their cases."
The Supreme Court in September 2000 sentenced Tommy to an 18- month jail term over an US$11 million land scam in 1995 involving his supermarket chain Goro Batara Sakti and the State Logistics Agency (Bulog).
Then president Abdurrahman in October 2000 rejected Tommy's request for a pardon. A month later, Tommy went on the run.
Tommy's lawyers then filed for a review of the Supreme Court decision, and on Monday the court overturned Tommy's conviction.
Hendardi suspected that there were political motives behind the decision.
"We know that there is a huge backlog of cases which should be resolved by the court. Why should it have proceeded with a case that actually should not even have been heard?," he added.