Editorial: Prita’s half-baked justice

The Jakarta Post | Wed, 12/30/2009 9:18 AM | Opinion

There is justice after all. The Tangerang District Court on Tuesday exonerated Prita Mulyasari from all criminal charges of defaming the good name and reputation of Omni International Hospital in the township near Jakarta. It is hard to imagine just how the public would have reacted if the court had ruled the other way.

The public was fast losing its confidence in the judiciary after a series of rulings violated their sense of justice. They included the earlier civil defamation lawsuit between Omni and Prita that went in favor of the hospital. Tuesday’s verdict in a way gives us a sense of hope that justice can prevail, albeit only sometimes.

Prita landed herself in trouble after the hospital filed a complaint with the police about being defamed by the 32-year-old woman who wrote about her horrendous experience at the hospital. She wrote this in an email to a friend, who subsequently forwarded the message to others, and the message eventually found a wider audience on the Internet.

She effectively became the first victim of the new draconian Electronic Information and Transaction Law. The law allows for the detention of any suspect charged with a crime punishable with more than five years. The law sets a maximum punishment of six years for criminal defamation.

Her detention provoked massive public outcry that subsequently led to her release, but Omni hospital had the audacity to ignore public opinion and went ahead with its charges in both the civil and criminal courts against her.

Earlier this month, the hospital won the civil case, with the court awarding Rp 204 million in damages.

This provoked a second public outcry and a massive fundraising campaign to help Prita raise the money. The campaign collected over Rp 800 million, mostly in coins and mostly donated by ordinary people from across the nation, including poor people and children who broke their piggy banks.

How the court could reach two contradictory verdicts in the civil and criminal case is baffling. It tells us there is something very wrong with the way the law is being administered. The Supreme Court is currently hearing the civil case on Prita’s appeal. As the last bastion of justice, let’s hope the court delivers the right decision.

But whatever the judiciary is doing, rest assured the nation is fully behind Prita, not only for her sake, but more importantly, for the sake of justice.