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Online court hearings see peak in death penalty cases: Study
A new report by Amnesty International Indonesia has revealed that the number of death penalty cases peaked during COVID-19, correlating it to the lack of in-person hearings.
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Illustration of the death penalty by firing squad. According to a 2015 survey from the Law and Human Rights Ministry, some 80 percent of Indonesians still support capital punishment. (JP/Budhi Button)
T
he number of death sentences handed to Indonesian criminals reached a record-high in 2020, and continued to be unusually high, a 2021 Amnesty International Indonesia (AII) report revealed, correlating the upward trend to the implementation of online courts where all trials are conducted virtually in response to COVID-19 protocols.
The report showed a largely consistent upward trend in the number of death sentences issued by the state since at least 2018, before reaching a climax in 2020 and almost plateauing the following year. Drug-related cases made up 82 percent of all new death penalty cases in 2021, or 94 out of 114. Though the issuance of capital punishment continued to rise, there was no recorded execution during the year.
“The number of death sentences issued by Indonesia remained at a high level in the second year of COVID-19. This is concerning as it is caused by the obstruction of non-virtual hearings,” said the report.
Roughly a month after Indonesia detected its first wave of COVID-19, the Supreme Court allowed for all lower and appellate court hearings to be held via videoconferencing application Zoom, where the defendants attend the hearing virtually while judges and prosecutors remain physically present in the courtroom. This new found convenience was described by some judicial officers as a “blessing in disguise”, as it allowed them to handle significantly more cases in a given time.
Rights activists quickly hopped on the digital transition, saying that online hearings were potentially injurious to defendants as unprecedented factors such as technical glitches merged with the hearing process. AII executive director Usman Hamid told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that online hearings were flawed in many ways.
“Online hearings are a hindrance to the judicial process, especially during authentication. This has real consequences for the potential violation of the defendants’ rights to have access to a fair trial. At their worst, online hearings can cause a miscarriage of justice,” said Usman.
Read also: Rights groups call on govt to abolish death penalty
