Justice for the poor, the world’s big concern
Indonesian participants in 4th IACA conference, from left to right: Chief Judge of Central Jakarta District Court, Syahrial Sidik, Justice Marina Sidabutar, Deputy Chief Justice for Development, Widayatno, DG of Badilag, Wahyu Widiana, Head of Public Relation Affairs, Nurhadi, and Chief of Taxation Court, Djazoeli Sadhani.
Jakarta | badilag.net/english (23/11)
Access to justice for the poor has become a big concern of International communities. Many countries have ensured the poor to access to justice. Indonesia and Australia, for example, have long held circuit courts for people living in remote areas and facing barriers to travel to courts.
Different from those two countries, Guatemala applies a unique form of ensuring this access. This country uses mobile courts as a media for the poor to access the court. Mobile courts employ buses that have been designed in such comfortable and feasible way for justice seekers to get satisfactory services.
All court services from registration, consultation and sessions are conducted inside the buses. The buses are regularly launched to remote areas whose dwellers are mostly poor. We may know this kind of service in Indonesia as Perpustakaan Keliling (mobile library) and Puskesmas Keliling (mobile public health services).
.It was Waleed Haider Malik, a Pakistani origin, from World Bank for Latin America and Caribbean Regions that gave a presentation of the Guatemalan mobile courts. Using a video film, Waleed successfully drew much attention from the participants of 4th IACA (International Association for Court Administration) held last 2-4 November 2009 in Istanbul, Turkey.
Apart from Waleed, Cate Sumner from Australia and Wahyu Widiana, Director General of Badilag, also succeeded in drawing the partakers’ attention. Cate and Wahyu delivered a collaborative paper entitled “Access to the General and Religious Courts for Poor People in Family Law and Birth Certificate Cases.” Cate presented the Survey Findings while Wahyu spoke about the strategic responses that have been undertaken by the Supreme Court i.e Directorate General of Religious Courts Body.
Being moderated by Leisha Lister, Executive Adviser to CEO of FCoA, Cate and Wahyu’s interesting paper lasted for almost 2 hours, exceeding the scheduled time due to a number of questions and comments from curious participants particularly on enhanced access to justice for poor people.
Survey Findings in Indonesia.
Cate Sumner presented 2 surveys conducted by independent institutions, Center for Islam and Society Studies (PPIM) State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta, and other institutions. The two surveys were funded by IA-LDF (Indonesia Australia Legal Development Facilities) Australia.
The first survey was undertaken in 2007 with 1040 respondents consisting of ex-parties randomly chosen from 35 Religious Courts all over Indonesia and 163 female heads of household from PEKKA NGO and officers from Cianjur Religious Court, Brebes Religious Court, and Giri Menang Religious Courts, West Nusa Tenggara.
The second survey was undertaken in 2009 with 1600 respondents from ex-users of General and Religious Courts, 75 females living under poverty line, and 65 legal professionals. 1200 cases of divorce and birth certificate were analyzed that involved 70 General and Religious Courts.
The survey aimed to provide inputs for the Supreme Court has revealed some key findings. One of the key findings is that there is a high satisfaction from the courts users. 70 % of the respondents said they would be back to the courts if they had similar legal cases.
In addition, the surveys revealed that poor people, especially those living under Indonesian poverty line, face great barriers to bring their cases to the courts due to high transportation costs and court fees.
Meanwhile, Data from UNICEF shows that some 60% of Indonesian children (80% of whom are in poor provinces) do not possess birth certificates. The absence of birth certificate will cause them in trouble when pursuing education and doing other social works. This also will affect legal status of the children in terms of the rights of guardianship, inheritance and the like.
Birth certificate is closely related to the legality of parents’ marriage represented by marriage certificate. Unregistered marriage and divorce will make children difficult to obtain their birth certificates.
DG of Badilag, Wahyu Widiana, showed the participants of IACA conference in Istanbul a photo of judges and staff of Maninjau Religious Court, West Sumatra, who had to get off the and push the car which would almost plunge into the deep valley. the judges were on the way to hold a circuit court in the most remote area of Maninjau jurisdiction. Indonesia has long held this kind of circuit court.
Strategic Responses of the Supreme Court.
In 4th IACA conference attended by court administrators worldwide, Wahyu Widiana clearly described the strategic responses taken by the Supreme Court.
He said the Supreme Court is not easily satisfied with the survey result revealing high satisfaction of court users (70%). Instead, the Supreme Court continuously creates innovations to provide excellent services to the public.
Improvements have been made by the Supreme Court, he said. The improved facilities, transparency on court proceedings, transparency on court fees, transparency on state budget, information desk system, the availability of websites in the Supreme Court and its subordinate courts, computerized case management system, and improvement of Human Resources are some of the examples.
Budget for Access to justice by the Court is highly significant.
The enhancement of budget for prodeo cases, circuit courts, court security and legal aids plays a very significant role in improving access to justice.
Before the 2007 survey, for instance, budget for prodeo cases in Religious Courts nationwide was only Rp. 1 billion but after the survey, the Supreme Court increased the budget for prodeo cases, circuit courts and other elements related to justice for the poor principle to Rp. 30 billion for Religious Courts only.
The step taken by the Supreme Court to seriously respond to the survey findings received much appreciation since the Court pay much attention to enhancement of “justice for the poor”. Cate Sumner even said, “Rp 36 B of new Government of Indonesia State commitment of budget funds directed to waiving court fees for the poor and bringing courts to remote locations (circuit courts) in 2008 and 2009 strengthening access to family courts for the poor in Indonesia, particularly women”.
To control the implementation of “justice for the poor’ program, especially on the reporting system of state budget for prodeo cases and circuit courts, the Supreme Court in collaboration with Family Court of Australia (FCoA) and IA-LDF develops SMS-based reporting system.
Using this system, it is estimated that, based on October report, by the end of 2009 there will be 3000 prodeo cases finalized by Religious Courts all over Indonesia. This means that prodeo cases increase 9 fold compared to 2007 that only finalized 325 cases.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that by the end of this year, there will be 16.000 cases finalized through circuit courts, 4 time increase than that of 2007 which only finalized 3735 cases.
Unfortunately, the available budget has not yet fully used due to difficulties found in the administration system in addition to low sensitivity of court officers in this matter.
Future Hopes.
Considering the importance of ensuring access to justice for poor people and for those living in remote areas, budgets for prodeo cases, circuit courts and legal aids need to be increased.
“Justice really is for all, but, for poor people moreover for those living very far from courts, justice is almost unreachable,” Wahyu Widiana told badilag.net.
Accordingly, Wahyu Widiana –and all people for sure—absolutely supports the efforts to guarantee that justice is easily accessed by the poor and the remote dwellers.
Besides increasing state budget, improvement of judges and court officials’ sensitivity in formulating plans and implementing the budget as well as disseminating adequate information to the communities are also important.
As could be seen from the 4th IACA conference in Istanbul lately, the issues of access to justice and justice for the poor have become world spotlight. A follow up conference for Asia Pacific regions has been planned to be held in Indonesia in the beginning of 2011. We believe that we can provide poor people a full access to justice with strong determination. (Adli Minfadli Robby/cho).