Opinion
Legal Finality vs Substantive Justice: A Critical Reconstruction of Corrupt Judgments -By Malakh Joy Barakh Sucipto
The root of the problem is not that there is no law, it is that moral lines are not drawn. Snatching a verdict by bribery flies in the face of due process and equality before the law, the most basic procedural principles ever laid down. It does not give the parties their chance to be heard, distorts evidence and just mucks around with the power of judicial decision. For a judgment to be deemed legally effective in such a case is to legitimize the corruption itself.
Many legal systems are dangerously seductive, because once a judgment has become final, people tend to think it is just and correct.This belief is enshrined in Res Judicata doctrine. It intends stability to prevent endless lawsuits and to maintain the prestige of the court. But what’s the effect of a “final” judgment which is not a matter of law, but rather corruption. If justice itself is being bought and sold then what happens? In such cases, the “finality” of law does not protect justice: it hides its betrayal. In various jurisdictions, courts are treated as the last guardians of truth; their decisions once final are presumed to be proper, binding and lawful. But this presumption breaks down when judicial processes are corroded by bribery or undue influence. A corrupted judgment is not merely flawed, it is flagrant illegitimate. It is not the law, but legalized injustice.And yet, this country’s legal system remains bound in a paradox: it continues to uphold the binding force of final judgments even when those judgments are later shown to be products of corruption. This is not neutrality. It is complicity.No matter how one tries to justify the retention of final decisions, legal certainty is often called in its favour. Without finality, people say, the legal system would sink into chaos. But this argument is deeply flawed. It isn’t a good thing when you are sure about something unjust. Stability based on corruption is not order, it is the hypocritical imposition of systemic failure as legality.
The root of the problem is not that there is no law, it is that moral lines are not drawn. Snatching a verdict by bribery flies in the face of due process and equality before the law, the most basic procedural principles ever laid down. It does not give the parties their chance to be heard, distorts evidence and just mucks around with the power of judicial decision. For a judgment to be deemed legally effective in such a case is to legitimize the corruption itself. A chilling message is sent out: Justice has its price, and the courts can be gamed destructively without consequences. This is not just a problem of detail. It is a human rights violation. Allowing finality to become doctrine usurps any right to say that the process as a whole is a constitutional or ethical failure. No!I cannot comprehend that anything which was fundamentally wrong should be made to look alright through the support of a doctrine of finality. But in some countries today mechanisms for challenging such judgments remain weak, fragmented or do not exist at all. A corrupt judge may escape criminal conviction but the decisions he made will still hang, effective and binding. This is basically contradictory: the system acknowledges but does not shake off corruption.Punishing the corrupt perpetrator yet preserving his judgment is not justice but institutionalized hypocrisy.What is needed is for legal systems to totally rethink their understanding of finality. Finality must not be absolute in the future; it has to be conditional. And it does not only rest on procedural completion: it depends upon the legitimacy of that process itself. A judgment that arises from a situation of corruption must be regarded as legally void from the very beginning not simply open to question and yet in effect valid.
This is not a threat to legal certainty and is essential foundation for it alone. Reform must go beyond abstract principles. Mechanisms must be built into legal systems so that fraudulent stubborn judgments can be annulled or reopened. Courts have to be able to give priority and be boundethically by the principles of substantiv justice over proceduralystic closure. Supervision agencies will be strengthened, transparency broadened and digital traceability of judicial processes applied in order to reduce possibilities for tampering.Best of all, the burden of proof needs to be shifted onto anyone maintaining that a judgment is legitimate. It cannot simply rest on the assumption must become something you earn. Because the greatest threat to the judiciary does not come from uncertainity but systematic injustice under the aegis of law. In Hijacking of Justice somroots that was quoted before, there are many such evils to mention and no end to them. Every system of law making finds ways with which to side in favor of its own vested interests. When the courts cease being places for settling disputes and become transaction centers, though, such an approach cannot go excuses itself morally.A legal system which upholds final decisions at the expense of truth does not uphod justice, instead it fosters its absence. And when judges themselves no longer stand on principle but as agents Ⅱ the corporate game, in that event our entire legal tradition lacks moral standing before mankind.In the end, the question is not whether final rulings should be respected. It is: do corrupted ones still deserve to go uncorrected? If the answer is affirmative, then that’s it. The rule of law has already gone by the board.
Malakh Joy Barakh Sucipto
Alumni of Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Member of LAW FIRM VICTORIOUS INDONESIA
