Week #2-07

My colleague here is still missing. Apparently he had some unfortunate accident and had to stay home and all. So in the meanwhile, it’ll be myself and you guys instead. Nothing too special came up this week, except for some potentially interesting things (Ha!)

We will do a week wrap and have some quick Q n A session with in_absentia to clarify some of the legal mumbles from the press this week.

For a very long time, Indonesians keep little respect for the law. For much of our history, the Law existed to the exclusive benefit of the few.

In the period after 1997 (otherwise known as the ‘reformasi’ days), however, Indonesians go postal on everything legal. We can argue on the substance of these recent development, but one thing is clear: Indonesians today are much more comfortable when it comes to all things legal. For better or worse.

Now, on to the headlines.

Soapy Stuff Dept. This is actually from last week and not so much this week. The Indonesian Film Festival 2006 picked a crap movie for Indonesia’s Best Cinema and polemics ensued. Everyone seem to agree that it was indeed an ugly movie, but how ugly is it, really? Some 30 previous award winners made their discontent public and returned their awards (all of them are contemporary –and notable- Indonesian film makers and actors). Some of them accused that the 2006 blatantly copied the score and music from Hollywood movies and not only undeserving of the award, but also a copyright infringement. The gov’t funded FFI was firm on decisions and invite the offended parties to file a lawsuit.
My question:

a) can you sue the FFI (on the grounds that they’re a gov’t funded entity) for choosing a bad movie?
b) If the filmmakers indeed infringed on copyright laws, who will take action? (particularly so when the police were aggressively checking people’s laptop for pirated software).


Missing Plane Dept. The Supreme Court made a statement today that members of the public can sue Adam Air for negligence. This is following the previous announcement from a consumer protection group that they’re preparing a lawsuit against Adam Air. I won’t say much more about Adam Air since everybody else is also doing it, but I’ve a question:

a) How (and why) is a court official (Supreme Court spokesperson, Mr. Djoko Sarwoko), making a statement on eligibility of a lawsuit? At a glimpse, that looks a lot like a conflict of interest since such statement seems to indicate a certain bias in behalf of the court (the court is seemingly to send a welcome signal for such a lawsuit). Note that this isn’t the first time the Supreme Court made such comments on case eligibility, Supreme Justice Mr. Bagir Manan made a statement once to discount the possibility of a lawsuit against Lapindo Brantas (the company behind the mudflow in Sidoarjo).


Old Pains Dept.. The Attorney General office announced that they are ready with another graft case to potentially grab Soeharto. This time, it involves the various Soeharto foundation, totally some $100m. They’ve made several attempts to get the old man in the last 8 years or so, none without much success. On the last call, the AG office decided to drop the charges altogether.

a) How is this one expected to be different than the others? What are the likelihood of success? Is this just another tail wagging the dog?

Even More Old Pains Dept. BNP Paribas in Guernsey (a tax haven under the British commonwealth) is withholding $36m of Tommy Soeharto’s fund. The bank claimed to suspect graft and wrongdoings in the accumulation of the fund. Tommy claimed otherwise (thru Gartner investment).
What makes it interesting is that the AG office expressed their interest and intend to ‘intervene’ in the case, potentially, to get their hands on part of the money. The logic goes that since Tommy was obviously involved in corruption cases in Jakarta, then the money could be suspect to unlawful gains.
Tommy was only very recently let out from prison and the Supreme Court allowed him to get his hands on $100m previously held in a local bank thru some funny legal shenanigans.

a) what chances do they have on getting anything right in London when they’re doing the exact opposite in Indonesia? Is this just a scam to get free travel allowances to England?


I’m posing the questions, in Absentia will answer later.