“We decreed that we cannot accept the plaintiff’s pretrial motion, and the plaintiff will cover the cost of this pretrial hearing, which is zero,” Judge Sudjarwanto said on Tuesday, kompas.com reported.

The judge said the ticket issued by the police was only a notification that the plaintiff had violated a traffic rule and did not contain any penalty against him, so it could not be the subject of a pretrial hearing.

“The plaintiff’s pretrial request letter from July 17 [refers to an alleged] traffic violation. However, pretrial hearings have a limited scope, as we mentioned previously, so the plaintiff’s pretrial motion over the electronic ticket is not for a pretrial hearing to decide,” Sudjarwanto said.

The plaintiff, Denny Andrian, had filed a lawsuit against the Jakarta Police over an electronic parking ticket issued to him for an alleged violation on Jl. Sudirman in South Jakarta on July 17.

While the system showed the car as belonging to Denny, based on the vehicle registration certificate (STNK), Denny said he had not been the one driving the car at the time. Instead, it had been his cousin, Mahfudi.

“Think about it. How can you be ticketed if your vehicle enters Jl. Sudirman but you are not the one driving the car?” Denny said on Wednesday.

He said he did not mind paying a fine, but he thought his pretrial motion was still important to improve the police’s performance.

“It’s easy for me to just pay the fine, but I want to improve [the police]. I filed this lawsuit not because I dislike the police, but courts should be horizontal, meaning they have to watch over the police. The latter can’t do whatever they want,” Denny said. (ami)

Popular

The fragile promise of pluralism, religious freedom in Southeast Asia

Coffee, gold push up inflation to 1.95 percent in April

Furniture exporters decry new quarantine rule