By Ricky Gunawan
Published by UPI Asia Online, December 09, 2009
Jakarta, Indonesia — Three shameful cases brought before Indonesian courts recently reveal that the country’s legal system is in very poor shape. The law is applied forcefully against the poor and vulnerable, while the rich and powerful evade it with impunity.
Minah, an illiterate 55-year-old grandmother who lives in a small Indonesian village near Banyumas in Central Java, was taken to court last month for stealing three cocoa fruits worth 1,500 rupiah (US$0.15) from a plantation. She was confused that, after having returned the fruit with apologies to the plantation, the owner still reported her to the local police station.
She had to travel a long distance on foot and by bus to face questioning and trial. Minah, who stood trial without a lawyer, said she took the cocoa fruits in September to grow plants from the seeds. The local district court gave her a 45-day suspended sentence and three months’ probation. It means that if Minah commits a similar offence within three months from the date of conviction, she will have to serve her 45-day sentence.
A similar case took place in Kediri, East Java, where local police arrested and detained two farmers, Basar Suyanto and Kholil, for stealing a watermelon from a neighboring field. The two remorseful farmers made their first court appearance, like Minah, unaccompanied by lawyers. They remained in detention more than two months before a court-appointed lawyer obtained their release. Their case remains unsettled.
Aguswandi Tanjung, a 57-year-old tenant in an apartment in Jakarta, was arrested on Sept. 8 for stealing electricity. He was detained for charging his mobile phone in a corridor inside the apartment block after the building management cut off the electricity to his apartment.
Compare the three cases above with that of Indonesian businessman Anggodo Widjojo, who allegedly conspired to frame two commissioners of the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission. Based on wiretapped conversations heard in a Constitutional Court hearing a few months back, the evidence is strong that he tried to interfere in cases with several high-ranking law enforcement officers.
He also has said on national television that he gave nearly 6 billion rupiah (US$636,000) to a case broker to deal with the problem of the anti-corruption body. Yet the police have been unable to pin charges on him and until today Anggodo remains untouchable.
These are just a few cases that have come to public attention; certainly there are many similar examples of injustice. These abysmal stories show that in Indonesia the law is powerful against the poor, yet impotent against those with power and money.
In the context of protecting human rights, laws are intended to uphold the rights that are inherent to all human beings. The laws allow everyone to claim their rights and oblige the state to prosecute those who deny them.
Indonesia’s dysfunctional legal system cannot protect its people’s human rights. If past abuses are left unresolved, future human rights violations are likely to take place and remain unresolved as well.
Indonesia needs to reform and strengthen its legal system. Otherwise, the country will end up in pandemonium where laws are only paper and human rights turn into human wrongs.
--
(Ricky Gunawan holds a law degree from the University of Indonesia. He is program director of the Community Legal Aid Institute, or LBH Masyarakat, based in Jakarta. The institute provides pro bono legal aid and human rights education for disadvantaged and marginalized people.)
Jakarta Time, GMT +07.00
December 16, 2009
Addicted to corruption in Indonesia
By Ricky Gunawan
Published by Asia Catalyst, December 3, 2009
Rose (not her real name) has been using drugs for more than ten years. During that time, she had been arrested a number of times, and her life has been harrowing. Not long ago, she began to feel hope for the first time, when in a breakthrough decision, Indonesia's judges decided to send her to a rehabilitation center to treat her addiction.
However, Indonesia's rotten and corrupt judicial system dashed her hopes.
Rose was arrested by the police on January 23, 2009 and after a lengthy legal process, received a court decision on July 27. Normally, Indonesia's courts sentence drug users to prison. In this case, the court ordered her to be imprisoned for one year and eight months, but to begin with a period of rehabilitation for six months. This meant that once she got out from rehab she would only need to stay in prison for one year and two months. Since she had already served six months in detention waiting for her court hearing, that would be deducted from the total sentence, and Rose would only need to serve eight months in prison after her time in rehab.
The court's decision to sentence Rose to rehab was a breakthrough and a first for Indonesia. It signaled that courts are finally beginning to consider drug users as victims from a health perspective, and to understand that putting them in prison will not treat their addiction. In fact, Indonesia's poor correctional facilities will only deteriorate their health.
However, as of this writing - more than three months after the court decision - Rose is still waiting in a detention center.
What went wrong? After the court delivered its decision, the prosecutor's office should have executed the judgment; in this case, they should have transferred Rose from Pondok Bambu Detention Center to Drug Dependence Hospital in Cibubur, Jakarta, for six months, and then sent her on to the correctional facility for eight months.
But the prosecutor, detention center and hospital officials had no idea of how to transfer such a person. Rose is the first person detained in the Pondok Bambu Detention Center to be sentenced to rehab. The prosecutor claimed that they have no standard operational procedure for transferring a person from a detention center to a rehab center.
Poor administration and bad bureaucracy have led Rose's sentence-execution letter to ping-pong from one unit to another within the prosecutor's office, with many typos added along the way, thus necessitating repeated rewriting of the letters. Disgracefully and predictably, the prosecutor has tried to extort Rose for fees in order to "expedite the process".
It seems that the prosecutor doesn't understand the concept of drug dependence. A drug user who is suffering from serious addiction, and who is detained for more than three months without proper medication, is of course having a very hard time. Ignoring Rose's dire need to get drug dependence treatment simply amounted to ill-treatment. Rose is suffering terribly in detention.
It is deeply disappointing to see that after more than ten years of efforts at institutional reform, the prosecutor's office has failed to eradicate the cancer eating away at its heart: that is, corruption. If in this petty case, a prosecutor is unable to handle the execution of a straightforward sentence to rehab, then it is no wonder that in cases involving corruption of high-rank government officials, members of parliament, or even in the case of Munir - Indonesia's assassinated human rights defender - the prosecutor is utterly impotent.
The key to successful institutional reform lies in the ability of institutions to recognize their own weaknesses. They need to be able to acknowledge that there are internal problems that need to be fixed, and be open to constructive criticism as well as expert assistance from outside. Without this ability to diagnose and fix its own weaknesses, the institution itself will be left behind and excluded by other enhanced and modern institutions that are transparent, accountable, and that have zero tolerance of corruption.
Indonesia's prosecutors should learn a lesson from Rose's heartrending story. It should be a basis for the prosecutor in developing procedures to handle similar cases in the future, so that no one again will undergo what Rose has -- and still is -- suffering.
--
Ricky Gunawan holds a law degree from the University of Indonesia. He is program director of the Community Legal Aid Institute, or LBH Masyarakat, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. The institute provides pro bono legal aid and human rights education for disadvantaged and marginalized people.
Published by Asia Catalyst, December 3, 2009
Rose (not her real name) has been using drugs for more than ten years. During that time, she had been arrested a number of times, and her life has been harrowing. Not long ago, she began to feel hope for the first time, when in a breakthrough decision, Indonesia's judges decided to send her to a rehabilitation center to treat her addiction.
However, Indonesia's rotten and corrupt judicial system dashed her hopes.
Rose was arrested by the police on January 23, 2009 and after a lengthy legal process, received a court decision on July 27. Normally, Indonesia's courts sentence drug users to prison. In this case, the court ordered her to be imprisoned for one year and eight months, but to begin with a period of rehabilitation for six months. This meant that once she got out from rehab she would only need to stay in prison for one year and two months. Since she had already served six months in detention waiting for her court hearing, that would be deducted from the total sentence, and Rose would only need to serve eight months in prison after her time in rehab.
The court's decision to sentence Rose to rehab was a breakthrough and a first for Indonesia. It signaled that courts are finally beginning to consider drug users as victims from a health perspective, and to understand that putting them in prison will not treat their addiction. In fact, Indonesia's poor correctional facilities will only deteriorate their health.
However, as of this writing - more than three months after the court decision - Rose is still waiting in a detention center.
What went wrong? After the court delivered its decision, the prosecutor's office should have executed the judgment; in this case, they should have transferred Rose from Pondok Bambu Detention Center to Drug Dependence Hospital in Cibubur, Jakarta, for six months, and then sent her on to the correctional facility for eight months.
But the prosecutor, detention center and hospital officials had no idea of how to transfer such a person. Rose is the first person detained in the Pondok Bambu Detention Center to be sentenced to rehab. The prosecutor claimed that they have no standard operational procedure for transferring a person from a detention center to a rehab center.
Poor administration and bad bureaucracy have led Rose's sentence-execution letter to ping-pong from one unit to another within the prosecutor's office, with many typos added along the way, thus necessitating repeated rewriting of the letters. Disgracefully and predictably, the prosecutor has tried to extort Rose for fees in order to "expedite the process".
It seems that the prosecutor doesn't understand the concept of drug dependence. A drug user who is suffering from serious addiction, and who is detained for more than three months without proper medication, is of course having a very hard time. Ignoring Rose's dire need to get drug dependence treatment simply amounted to ill-treatment. Rose is suffering terribly in detention.
It is deeply disappointing to see that after more than ten years of efforts at institutional reform, the prosecutor's office has failed to eradicate the cancer eating away at its heart: that is, corruption. If in this petty case, a prosecutor is unable to handle the execution of a straightforward sentence to rehab, then it is no wonder that in cases involving corruption of high-rank government officials, members of parliament, or even in the case of Munir - Indonesia's assassinated human rights defender - the prosecutor is utterly impotent.
The key to successful institutional reform lies in the ability of institutions to recognize their own weaknesses. They need to be able to acknowledge that there are internal problems that need to be fixed, and be open to constructive criticism as well as expert assistance from outside. Without this ability to diagnose and fix its own weaknesses, the institution itself will be left behind and excluded by other enhanced and modern institutions that are transparent, accountable, and that have zero tolerance of corruption.
Indonesia's prosecutors should learn a lesson from Rose's heartrending story. It should be a basis for the prosecutor in developing procedures to handle similar cases in the future, so that no one again will undergo what Rose has -- and still is -- suffering.
--
Ricky Gunawan holds a law degree from the University of Indonesia. He is program director of the Community Legal Aid Institute, or LBH Masyarakat, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. The institute provides pro bono legal aid and human rights education for disadvantaged and marginalized people.
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