I do not want to argue about the considerations behind the premeditated murder conviction of Jessica Kumala Wongso on Thursday.

Neither do I question the need for the national media to broadcast the final hearing live, as they did every time the Central Jakarta District Court heard the case (see Ika Krismantari’s piece “Stop the drama, give fair trial a chance, please!” in The Jakarta Post on Sept. 7).

What matters is the important role media outlets played during the months-long court proceedings. Amid the debate among scholars, lawyers and society over whether the trial should be broadcast live or not, it is clear that the coverage has taught society many lessons, although many deem the time slots dedicated to the trial as so exaggerated that they reduced the case to a media circus.

First, the extensive media coverage really showed just how tough the endeavor of law enforcement officials is, and should be.

Accusing, defending or considering whether a person is guilty or not, and every action taken to change the fate of someone’s life, is not an easy task, yet it is a noble one.

The broadcast has changed the mindset of lay people, who used to think that defense lawyers were wicked, that prosecutors were the most snobbish people alive and that judges were happy to accept bribes.

Those persons ostentatiously showed noble behavior instead.

In the end (and that is the most important thing), the broadcast told Indonesian society that the national criminal procedure law faces a lot of problems.

The challenges, as evinced in the Jessica murder case, range from prosecutors who refuse to give defense lawyers copies of CCTV footage that could weaken the defendant’s rebuttal, the collection of evidence where no one can guarantee its authenticity and validity because it is conducted without examination reports, to court audiences engaging in yelling, clapping or other unruly behavior.
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If the judiciary cannot maintain a high quality of judges, we should not be surprised if people lose trust in the justice system.

Those problems give rise to public concern and resentment at the same time.

Some people are thunderstruck by such conditions, others wonder how such a situation could come about and the rest angrily express their views in social media.

Not to mention the considerations by the panel of judges to declare Jessica guilty. The snot-nose, teardrops and the behavior of the defendant in the past were taken into account by the judges to build an opinion that Jessica murdered her former friend Wayan Mirna Salihin by way of poisoning.

The subjective judgment poses a societal dilemma.

On the one hand, thanks to the live broadcast, the public realized that the judges’ decision cannot be contested by anyone.

On the other hand, they also realized that our judiciary needs a quality control mechanism to improve the performance of judges, so that justice is served.

If the judiciary cannot maintain a high quality of judges, we should not be surprised if people lose trust in the justice system and take the law into their own hands.

In facts, these are common issues that we have discussed over time, but to which we have yet to find
solutions.

While the government, scholars, advocates, law enforcers and civil society organizations seek any path to improve the country’s criminal justice system in a bid to build public confidence in it, but to no avail, media outlets have done it through their live broadcast of only a single criminal case.

It is up to the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission to ban or promote such live broadcasts of court hearings. I believe thoughts cannot be united, so debates will never cease.

The most important thing, however, is that society has learned a lot from the Jessica case.

For that reason, we should appreciate and be grateful to the mass media for raising public concerns.

In the end, let us wait with patience for “Jessica Trial Season II [Appellate Court Edition]”.
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The writer is a researcher with the Indonesian Judiciary Monitoring Society at University of Indonesia’s School of Law, Depok, West Java.

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