UNJUST & ARBITRARY POWER

Inter-Didactic strives for humanity through truth, peace and justice in Indonesia with the awareness that:

Injustice divides and fragments because wider interests are subordinated - just rule of law offers consistency and cohesion.

Injustice results in the misallocation of scarce resources - just rule of law provides a framework for proper allocation leading to greater prosperity for all.

Injustice leads to injustice, grievances and conflict - just rule of law enables proper redress and stability.

Injustice aids a minority of businesses, but deters many, many more - just rule of law provides consistency and predictability conducive to wealth creation generally.

Injustice reverts to the use of force of arms which further undermines justice - just rule of law minimises the use of force.

Injustice leads to environmental degradation - just rule of law enables environmental protection.

Injustice is the fault of both the bribers and the bribed - just rule of law provides a system deterring both.

Injustice is insidious and always results in strife - just rule of law is the means to a just, stable and prosperous society.

Indonesia needs to make the transition to a legal system that serves justice and the rule of law. However, the concept of penal justice that currently and ostensibly lies behind Indonesian law enforcement is flawed for the following reasons:

1. Fear of retribution in wrongdoers ensures every attempt will be made to hide the truth and, thus, prevents progress.

2. The apparatus for legal retribution is open to abuse by the intolerant, corrupt or incompetent against the innocent who are unable to enforce their human rights for a whole variety of reasons.

3. Emphasis on retribution retards reform for the better in individuals and societies because precisely those who need to reform pour energy into thwarting penal justice instead.

4. If those individuals and societies that have been wronged see penal justice as a right they remain entrenched in the negativity of the past in the hope, often vain, that “justice will be done”.

5. Penal justice promotes the false, simplistic and retrogressive view that society’s ills can be solved by punishment – a view with horrific consequences when taken to extremes.

6. Penal justice, in raising expectations for justice, often drives injustice because no judicial system is perfect and the ability to enforce rights can never be equal.