The 'Tempo' verdict

The Supreme Court yesterday overturned a decision pronounced last November by the Jakarta Administrative High Court, which ordered Minister of Information Harmoko to issue a permit allowing the news magazine, Tempo, to resume publication.

The Supreme Court ruled that the revocation of Tempo's publishing permit is not the same as a ban, which is illegal under the 1966 Press Law. Thus Minister Harmoko's decision to revoke the permit cannot be qualified as an arbitrary act.

For many the verdict came as no surprise at all. They had predicted that in the current political situation there was no chance of Tempo reappearing. For one thing, according to this argument, allowing Tempo to resume publication would not only cause the government to lose face but would also have encouraged other people to follow suit. It also could have damaged the government's reputation and eventually disrupted national stability. Therefore, the argument goes, members of the press should remain under control and behave lest they have their permits revoked.

What comes as a surprise is the Supreme Court's ruling that a revocation and a ban are not the same thing. For many, the ruling is just the twisting of legal terminology. The revocation of a publishing permit is nothing but a ban, which means that the affected publication is forced to close.

Understandably, several critics have commented that the verdict is nothing but a political decision. But does this imply that the independence of the Supreme Court, which is perceived as the last bastion of justice in our country, has been subordinated to politics?

Frankly speaking, this is a difficult question to answer. But the fact remains that over the last several years more and more people have begun to question the integrity of the current Supreme Court. The issue of collusion on the Supreme Court that was raised recently by Deputy Chief Justice Adi Andojo, and later denied officially by Chief Justice Soerjono, has caused considerable damage to the Court's reputation. The Tempo verdict will undoubtedly aggravate the situation.

But does this mean that we should lose our faith in our judicial system?

We do not think so. The fact that the Jakarta Administrative Court and the Jakarta Administrative High Court had the guts to defy the powers that be and to declare that the minister of information's banning of Tempo was illegal, shows that there are still judges with the courage to challenge the system.

One should also remember that both sides -- former chief editor of Tempo Goenawan Mohamad and Minister of Information Harmoko -- from the very beginning agreed to settle the matter in court, and that both agreed to respect the ruling of the Supreme Court. Now the verdict has been handed down. Disappointed with it as one may be, one should respect it and accept it as a product of the current system.

One might also regard the verdict as a reminder to the media here that the years of living dangerously still prevail. Regardless, this should not discourage the media from continuing with its honorable duty or from striving for greater freedom of expression.

Whatever the case, Tempo is history now. For many of its faithful readers, it will be remembered as a fine news magazine which served them for 23 years with quality and enlightening reports. In the end it succumbed to the will of a political system. It tried to contest the decision and succeeded by winning two battles in court, though it ultimately lost in the third.

Yet this does not mean that the war has been lost. In the struggle for more democracy and press freedom, there is no end to the journey.