The Japanese occupation of Indonesia and the administration of justice today; Myths and realities

Abstract

Having recently attempted (in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde 152 3, pp. 382-428) to eliminate a few existing fallacies about the conduct of the Japanese in Indonesia shortly after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, my attention was drawn by a contribution by S. Pompe on The effects of the Japanese administration on the judiciary in Indonesia' in issue 152-4, dedicated entirely to Japan, Indonesia and the war; Myths and realities. As I myself was once engaged in the study and teaching of Indonesian criminal law, I found Pompe's views most intriguing. In his opinion, there was during the Japanese occupation 'a substantial erosion of judicial power [...] that was to condition it for years to come, its reverberations perhaps even being felt to the present day' (Pompe 1996b:575). This was a wholly new idea to me. Insofar as Pompe suggests a causal connection, his statement that 'it serves the present-day Indonesian patrimonial state [like the Japanese administra tion before] to have a judiciary it can control' is very bold and provocative. In Pompe's view perhaps influenced by Lev's summary (Lev 1965:174) the legal situation in the Netherlands East Indies before the arrival of the Japanese was marked by 'the existence of two separate judicial hierarchies alongside each other in the colony, one administrating European law and the other Indonesian' (see also Pompe 1996a:131). Hereby 'foreign Orientals, meaning essentially Chinese, were in part subjected to European and in part to Indonesian law'. As far as I can remember the situation was a little differ ent, however, and the Chinese were not at all subject to Indonesian law1,