Kompas - January 4, 2010
Jakarta – A existence of a
human rights court and ad hoc human rights judges needs to be reexamined.
Moreover ad hoc human rights judges are seen as excessive and consideration
needs to be given to whether such ad hoc judges are in line with international
justice.
This was one of the
suggestions made following a Supreme Court comparative study to Sweden headed
by Supreme Court Secretary Sareh Wiyono. The team spent two days between
December 18-19 studying human rights courts and produced a 13-page report,
which has been published on the Supreme Court's website.
Speaking in Jakarta on
Sunday January 3 however, Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of
Violence (Kontras) coordinator Usman Hamid said that the team's conclusions and
suggestions are far too premature. He also suspects that there are other
interests behind it.
"There are interests
seeking to whitewash past human rights violations. They want to normalise the
judicial system, to return the authority of judges solely to the Supreme Court
without providing an opening for ad hoc judges. This is one of the forms of
conservatism on the part of Supreme Court justices against reform", said
Hamid.
Hamid explained that the
choice of a comparative study to Sweden would not have been wrong if had been
done in a comprehensive manner. The Supreme Court's team should not just have
studied the Swedish justice system, but also the European justice system as a
whole. Admittedly there is no special human rights court in Sweden and human
rights violations are handled by ordinary courts, but the decisions of these
courts can be annulled by the Regional Legal Court in Europe.
According to the
comparative study report carried on the Supreme Court's official website, the
choice of visiting Sweden was made because the upholding of human rights there
is relatively better than Indonesia. Additionally the Indonesian government and
Sweden have an exchange of notes (EoN) on human rights that has resulted in
various forms of cooperation in organisational capacity building, human rights
education and so forth.
The team visited the
Swedish Justice Department and met with one of its high court justices and the
Swedish Ombudsman offices. Sweden does not recognise human rights courts and
human rights cases are presented in the form of class actions. The Supreme
Court report also noted that phone tapping is not used in Sweden because it
violates human rights.
Hamid criticised the choice
of countries visited saying the Supreme Court should have conducted a
comparative study in countries that have similar problems to Indonesia such as
Chile, Peru, Uruguay and Guatemala. (ana)
Notes:
Late last year the Supreme
Court was widely condemned by anti-corruption activists for its decision to
send more than 70 judges and their staff on a trip to European and Asian countries
costing the state some US$600,000. Critics have alleged that despite its
complaints of a shortage of funds to finance its operations, including the
establishment of corruption courts throughout the country, the Supreme Court
engaged in useless and non-transparent projects that it hid from public
scrutiny.
[Translated by James Balowski.]
