The concept of the rule of law is not one that most people readily associate with Indonesia. However, if this article by Ross Clarke in the Australian Journal of Asian Law is anything to go by, the assumption that judges of the new Indonesian Constitutional Court will be pliable to executive will may not be quite as self-evident as Indonesian history suggests. Personally I’ll believe it when I see it. My money remains strongly on Amrozi, Mukhlas and their mates stopping a few bullets to the head irrespective of nascent judicial independence.
As Clarke discusses, international precedents strongly suggest that Amrozi’s likely main constitutional argument against his conviction and death sentence shouldn’t succeed in any event:
Both sets of trials have been clouded in uncertainty due to a recent constitutional amendment which prohibits retrospective prosecution. The prosecution of crimes against humanity is a widely acknowledged exception to the principle of non-retrospectivity.