OMNI; WHY MUST WE STRUGGLE NOT TO STOP THIS CASE?

By

Maria Wulandari

            A difficult problem that is faced by the court in Indonesia today is Omni case, a case between ex-patient and Omni International Hospital, a hospital located in Tangerang, West Java. This case began when Prita had a medical treatment  in Omni International Hospital in August 7, 2008. Prita felt unsatisfied with the medical service and also the doctor  caring her.  She shared her feelings to some of her friends through e-mail. While Omni felt that their name has blackened because Prita’s e-mail has spread in some blogs. Omni brought this case to the police and sent Prita to the jail for about 3 weeks. Omni judge that Prita has collided with a regulation about Electronic Transaction of  Information. They also asked Prita to pay 261 millions. Knowing this irrational punishment, our society with a huge number of people criticism Omni’s action by supporting Prita through a social activity called ‘Coin for Prita’. They think, Prita just want to share her feelings. So, she’s not absolutely wrong. Actually, this is a simple case, but it becomes more controversial  in this recent time. Even, this case encourage SBY to show his attention to this case as a president. He said that to justify we must use our heart. However, from many opinions and judgments, it remains that we need to know the clear ending. Therefore, this case should be continued because of two reasons that is  to get the clear ending and to prove the law enforcement in Indonesia.

                The first reason is that it is still unclear who is  the right and who is the wrong in this case. In fact, Omni didn’t give Prita opportunity to explain this problem. Whereas,  if Prita brought to the court, so Omni should be brought to the court too. Both of them must be justified to clarify the fact. The chief of Law Enforcement Center said, for Prita, the court will do an inspection of matter to give a legal certainty and to prove whether she has did a defamation or not. If the information gave by Prita via e-mail is right, the court must take a decision to punish the doctor in Omni International hospital who did a wrong medical service. A legal observer, Ronald Simanjuntak also said that in this case, the process of matter is not easy. It is still difficult to know who is  the wrong and who is the right. There will be still a long process to find the final point between Omni  and Prita. It is a very important process aimed to know who should address an apology and what action is forgivable.

                The second reason is that this case shouldn’t be stopped to prove the law enforcement in Indonesia. It means, there is a good time for us to see how equitable is  the law can take a part in this case. In fact, Indonesia has a good law concept, but in application to the society sometimes it tends to have no attention to human rights. If there is an ordinary civil faced with a big power or institution, he/she will undergo a kind of injustice. We may see Prita’s experience, when   the police and the court receive an  information from Omni, they response it and brought Prita to the jail directly. Ironically, we may see at one time when the ordinary civil want to report a certain case, will the police or the court also response them as they response to Omni case? No, usually the ordinary civil tend to get the response with more complicated process. Even, the plolice or the court often decide a wrong decision. An example is Asrori’s case in East Java. He was brought to the jail because the court assumed that he had taken apart in a murder case. Whereas, he knew nothing about that and finally it is proved that he was not the wrong one. From this example, we can not trust our law directly. We need to take apart by controlling our law enforcement and this case shouldn’t be stopped. If the court finally gives a wrong decision, it is no doubt that the law in Indonesia is still deformity and we can not trust 100 % our own law and vice versa.

              In conclusion, because we need a clear ending and also need to prove our law enforcement, Omni case should be continued. Therefore, people should support the court and our government to achieve a good decision. We can take a part by controlling our law enforcement so it won’t collide with human rights.