Supreme Court under fire over Tommy's acquittal

Supreme Court under fire over Tommy's acquittal

Abu Hanifah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan) criticized on Friday the Supreme Court for its
failure to live up to the public's sense of justice.

PDI Perjuangan strongly questioned the Supreme Court on why it
didn't include the acquittal of fugitive Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala
Putra from corruption charges in its report to the Annual Session
of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

"We question why the Supreme Court did not report the case,"
PDI Perjuangan faction spokesman Amri Hasan said, while
delivering his party's review of the Supreme Court's
accountability speech.

The Assembly factions presented their assessments of the
accountability of high state institutions on Friday.

He said the Supreme Court's decision to acquit the youngest
son of former president Soeharto of the widely condemned graft
case had insulted the sense of justice among the public, who have
been demanding that the supremacy of the law be upheld.

The Court overturned on Oct. 1 the 18-month prison sentence
passed onto Tommy by a previous Supreme Court panel of justices.

Justice M. Taufik, who led the panel of judges, said the
Supreme Court had accepted the arguments forwarded in a request
for a review of the previous verdict on Tommy, thus annulling the
Court's previous ruling.

A panel of Supreme Court justices in November last year
sentenced Tommy to 18 months in jail for corruption in a 1996
land swap deal between his wholesale company PT Goro Batara Sakti
and the State Logistics Agency (Bulog). Tommy has been on the run
since then.

Golkar, however, did not specify cases handled by the court in
its review of the court's accountability, but said the Supreme
Court should boost its performance because there were many
verdicts that it had made, which were against the public's sense
of justice.

Golkar also said that the Supreme Court had failed to provide
a satisfactory service to the public in handling most cases.
"People have yet to receive a quick, simple and low cost service
to have their cases handled by the Court," the party spokesman
said.

PDI Perjuangan faction also questioned the commitment of
Supreme Court justices to combat corruption, collusion and
nepotism.