In some tort cases, when a plaintiffs sue a defendant more to make a point than to recover money, a court might award nominal damages to recognize the injury but minimize the stakes. A Rangoon court recently took this principle to unjustified extremes. According to Democratic Voice of Burma, a voter in the recent November 7 elections claims he was beaten up by two USDA thugs. Perhaps surprisingly, the court levied a fine on the men. However, this fine amounted to 500 kyats – approximately 50 cents. Meanwhile, the victim and his family claims to have spent at least 30,000 kyats on the litigation thus far. Sadly, the story is surprising not so much because of its blatant impunity, but rather because the court actually bothered to impose any fine at all – usually such cases are simply dismissed. One can only hope this isn’t a harbinger of the judiciary under the post-election civilianized government.
KKN reaches Indonesia’s Constitutional Court?
While observers often complain about corruption and nepotism within Indonesia’s judiciary, they usually allow that the Constitutional Court (Mahkamah Konstitusi) has been an exception to this rule. Now, allegations have arisen that one justice’s daughter and brother-in-law accepted bribes from a candidate in an election dispute before the court. The justice in question, Arsyad Sanusi, has just announced his retirement, which he claims is due to the fact that he will reach retirement age of 67 early next year. However, The Jakarta Post points out that he had earlier said he would “resign,” but this would have prevented him from receiving his pension, so he later corrected it to “retire.” Justice Arsyad denies all accusations of wrongdoing and has complained that his reputation has already suffered in the court of public opinion. If the accusations are true, it could cast a shadow on the Constitutional Court’s integrity. However, there was this odd scruple of honesty from one of the clerks: according to his attorney, a court clerk who had allegedly received Rp 35 million from the candidate decided to return the money when the court ruled against the candidate anyways. In other words, the candidate received a refund for his bribe. Hopefully this suggests that money doesn’t have the same power and influence in the halls of Indonesia’s Mahkamah Konstitusi.
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Filed under indonesia, Mahkamah Konstitusi
Book Review: Business-school reforms for Singapore’s judiciary
Singapore’s judiciary regularly ranks amongst the best in the world, at least for commercial disputes. The World Bank’s Judiciary-Led Reforms in Singapore: Framework, Strategies, and Lessons explains how this happened, with an emphasis on Singapore’s judicial reforms during the 1990s. It’s short, easy to read, and has an excellent executive summary. However, at times author Waleed Malik seems to go into “business-school” mode, focusing on organizational reform theory. For such a short study, I would have preferred more discussion of the behind-the-scenes politics of the reform, such as the roles and interests of Lee Kuan Yew and other stakeholders. I think this book will be useful for scholars and practitioners in the rule of law field, although it doesn’t address the key question of interest to this blog, namely overcoming political resistance to reform.
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Book Review: Democracy and the Rule of Law
The essays in Democracy and the Rule of Law (Cambridge Studies in the Theory of Democracy) come across as a collection of authors synthesizing books that they’ve written and published elsewhere. Nonetheless, it is a very nice way to sample some of the literature in this field. Some of the essays, particularly the first few, tend a bit too much towards the legal theory and less on the institutional side. I particularly enjoyed Robert Barros’ essays on constitutionalism in Pinochet’s Chile – he provides a fascinating argument for how institutions and law can in fact bind dictators under certain conditions. Now, this book did come out before Tom Ginsburg’s Judicial Review in New Democracies: Constitutional Courts in Asian Cases, and the literature on law and politics has only exploded since then. Still, I’d recommend this book to anybody interested in the field.
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Updates from the region
It’s been an exciting week for courts in Southeast Asia. Here are some updates:
Indonesia: The continuing saga of the prosecutions of Bibit and Chandra, two framed KPK officials, has taken yet another turn. The new attorney general, Basrief Arief, suggested that he might not support a deponering (essentially a pre-trial pardon) after all. Fortunately, this might not be just another cynical twist in Jakarta’s wayang politics. Like a pardon, deponering would essentially leave the two KPK officials with the stigma of being suspects or criminals for life, whereas some legislators in President Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party urge them to fight in trial to clear their name.
Philippines: As I mentioned earlier this week, the Supreme Court struck down Aquino’s Executive Order No. 1, which would have established a Truth Commission to investigate allegations of corruptions in the prior administration. Already, some are calling for the impeachment of Chief Justice Corona, including apparently Aquino himself. However, the Supreme Court spokesperson publicly stated the justices sympathized with the administration’s anti-corruption drive. Meanwhile, judges have been protesting the lack of a budget increase for the judiciary, and the Supreme Court denies having instigated the protests.
Thailand: The Constitutional Court issued its second ruling in the Democrat Party case, again absolving the party and Prime Minister Abhisit. As with the last case, the justices held that the prosecution had failed to follow proper procedures and file the suit in a timely manner. While question will certainly be raised ver the court’s impartiality, Thais will also probably have to wonder how such blatant malpractice in the prosecutor’s office ever passed muster.
Stay tuned for more from the region…
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Filed under indonesia, Philippines, Thailand
Dominic J. Nardi, Jr. 
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