Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Scientific Facts Irrelevant: A Note from Eric Ness

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Hi Jennifer,

I’m sure you have heard the old saying that rules are made to be broken. In most instances this is a relatively harmless idea if you are talking about a group of middle school children who fail to follow the instructions of their English teacher—at worst you might get a bunch of kids who can’t write well. However, what happens if the custodians of law in a country start to follow the same maxim? Unfortunately, you might get the Buyat case.

A justice system can fail in many ways. For instance, if a real criminal is not prosecuted or a criminal gets away with a disproportionately lenient sentence. But what happens when you are talking about a justice system that deliberately targeted an innocent man with the single minded determination to basically destroy his life, in this situation you are not talking about a justice system at all. However, this seems to be the situation exemplified by my Dad’s ongoing legal battles in Indonesia.

A friend of mine once said that you start having human rights issues when you stop following the rule of law. In the same tone it becomes pointless to continue talking about scientific facts because they have been made irrelevant in the absence of rule of law. As the Buyat case has proceeded it has truly revealed the personality of the justice system and we find ourselves facing some of these concerns.

Please read the rest of the blog entry at:

http://richardness.org/blog/ruleoflaworlawlessnessofrulers.php

Thanks,
Eric

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Louis Hissink says

    Jen,

    This is an extraordinary situation and I’ll see if I can slot some comment into the current AIG News due out this month.

  3. Jen says

    Louis,
    It would be good if you could include something in the AIG News. Note, I have just corrected my earlier comment, and deleted that Phil Turner is also on trial. He was in jail with Richard Ness and was to be charged, but so far only Richard Ness has been charged and is currently on trial.
    There is good background information here: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=112404A .

    Also you might get some information out about the ‘Mine Your Own Business’ film screening in Perth?

  4. Jen says

    Update.

    Yesterday prosecutors asked for 3 years jail for Richard Ness: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK141094.htm .

    “Chief prosecutor Purwanta told the Manado district court in North Sulawesi province that Newmont Minahasa Raya (NMR) had polluted the environment and its president director, American Richard Ness, did nothing to stop it…

    “Ness told reporters after the hearing: “The recommendation is absolutely a complete mockery of your court system.”

    “It seems like whoever wrote those charges never sat at this court… They just don’t understand the evidence,” he said.

    “Newmont’s lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan said in a statement issued by the company that the prosecution had failed to prove any of its allegations.”

  5. Schiller Thurkettle says

    Eric opens a painful and difficult topic that civilization had hoped to leave behind with the close of WWII. But it keeps coming back.

    The unfortunate thing about governments is that they are political. Many protest that their government is one of laws, and not of wo/men, but laws are, unfortunately, the playthings of those who find themselves in positions of power by whatever means the system makes available.

    The unfortunate thing about trials is that they are, essentially, a form of theatre. Trials portray the face a judicial system would like the public to see. Trial preparations, many of them conducted in judge’s chambers, merely set the stage for what juries, and the public, are ever able to see. And I include US jurisprudence in this description.

    As a practical matter, the real difference comes down to how much credibility the players are willing to sacrifice to reach a “legal” result that gives those in power what they want.

    If they want Richard Ness and what he represents, the job is to dress up justice enough to make the result look credible.

    If the credibility is lacking, and the science is bad, there’s no way the result can be “dressed up” and paraded as justice.

    The eyes of the world are on this case, and the credibility of the judiciary is in the balance as much as the future of Mr. Ness. When it appears that the rule of law has failed, capital investment flees and anarchy follows in its wake.

  7. Louis Hissink says

    Jen,

    OK,

    taken all that on board and will spend this weekend checking the facts.

    I’ve little room in the immediadte issue of AIG news but will focus on it next one out in Feb next year since it falls into our issue theme – red, black, brown, green tape.