Chairman of Indonesian Lawyer Association, Dr. Otto Hasibuan, S.H., M.M., considered that there is the wrong view among lawyers that in their profession, they should defend their clients in order to release them from lawsuits though the clients are guilty.
“Today it is very difficult to find lawyers who would ask the judge to punish their clients as guilty. Lawyers always ask the judge to free their clients despite their guilt,†said Otto Hasibuan, Wednesday (17/2), delivering Scientific Speech during the 64th Anniversary of Faculty of Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM).
Otto Hasibuan can understand that condition, because the lawyer, on the one hand, receives fee from their clients, so he acts on behalf of the client. On the other hand, a lawyer is a law enforcer who should uphold truth and justice.
In a speech entitled “Rejuvenation of Legal Higher Education that is Professional and Justâ€, Otto Hasibuan saw that this problem is the root of the failure in law enforcement by lawyers. If the paradigm can be changed, the lawyers will not comply with the client’s demand but uphold the truth.
Therefore, Otto suggested the Faculty of Law to inform students about this paradigm. If not, the law students would be influenced and act like those law enforcers they see on television, electronic and print media.
He saw that prosecutors have false understanding or paradigm of "prosecution". Therefore, a prosecutor during prosecution should do it for the sake of law, truth and justice, so if a defendant is not guilty, he must be released.
Otto said that in the prosecution, prosecutors find faults of the defendant without considering if the defendant is right. "For a prosecutor, a defendant should be punished, even if he is not guilty. It is difficult to find today an attorney who requests the defendant to be freed on the basis that he is believed to be innocent," he said.