Law

Whose word counts? A hierarchy of Indonesian justice

In colonial times, there were different laws for different people in Indonesia. Seventy years after independence, it looks as if that’s still the case. In the last week, a woman has been jailed because in a private Facebook chat she told a friend that her husband was abusing her. Her husband, snooping around in her private correspondence (itself a pretty good indicator of abuse) found the comments and reported his wife to the police. Then two teachers, one a foreigner, were jailed for 10 years on the evidence of a six year-old who accused them of using a magic stone conjured from thin air to lessen the pain of sexual abuse.


Vocab lessons for expat lawyers in Indonesia

So Indonesia is going to require expatriate lawyers to take an ethics test, in Indonesian. I think this is a splendid idea; though they are not actually allowed to practice law in Indonesia, foreigners certainly have a lot to learn from Indonesian lawyers when it comes to ethics. Here’s some essential vocab to get them started: Suap “Salary supplementation”. It literally means “to spoonfeed” and some cynics translate it as “bribe”, but they haven’t studied legal ethics in Indonesia. Cuci…


What does it take to get Indonesia into the New York Times?

In an average month, the world’s fourth most populous nation makes it in to the major newspaper of the world’s third most populous nation about three times. I know, because the New York Times has a very handy service that allows you to set up alerts; every time they run a story mentioning Indonesia, I get a heads up in my in-box. I got one of those alerts today. “Buddhist-Muslim Tensions Spread as 8 Detainees Die in Indonesia”, the headline…