June 21, 2005
Law of the bling
Eric Ellis
“I’m the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan
And I’m down on my luck”
- Warren Zevon from Lawyers, Guns and Money
AT 27, SCHAPELLE CORBY IS probably a bit too young for Warren Zevon but, given her present predicament, she would doubtless appreciate the American singer’s sentiments. Which are surely appropriate now that Jakarta’s most flamboyant lawyer, Hotman Paris Hutapea, has stepped into her troubled life, well practised as he is in law, guns and, particularly, in money.
When Indonesians lament their legal system is the best money can buy, possibly it is advocates such as Hotman, a 46-year-old Australian-educated Sumatran with an impressive mullet, that they have in mind.
The pistol-toting Hotman is Indonesia’s Johnnie Cochrane, its celebrity corporate litigator who has mined rich pickings in the wake of the multibillion-dollar collapses that littered Indonesia Inc after the late 1990s financial crisis.
Seven years later, very few Indonesian businessmen have been called to account for the mess. Indeed, several of them have kicked on to become powerful politicians, with one or two now cabinet ministers.
Most litigators committed to their craft may recall an experience of working in one of Australia’s biggest and most prestigious law firms as instructive, a nourishment in the majesty of the law. To Hotman it was all that, and more. He spent 1987-88 in Sydney at Freehill Hollingdale & Page. “I had good fun, I had a good time,” Hotman remembers. “I was in a big firm, one of the best, 22-floor building and on every floor so many beautiful secretaries. Of course I like it.”
Hotman studied at the University of Technology in Sydney and attended summer schools at Monash and Melbourne universities, and even at the Australian Stock Exchange. He says he didn’t finish his master’s degree at UTS “because I came back home earlier to get more money.
On the walls of Hotman’s Jakarta office, there are perhaps 100 framed press articles documenting his exploits. One shows him in chaps and a cowboy hat lassoing court adversaries. “This is only 10% of my advertisements,” he boasts, pointing to profiles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, not all of them favourable. “It doesn’t matter, I am objective.” Peppered among the gallery are celebrity snaps of famous Jakarta movie and pop stars, usually females. Some he has defended, some he has, er, become acquainted with. “I’m not a good husband because I know so many movie stars but I will get a very high score if you judge me as a father,” Hotman notes.
Fortunately for the Corby camp, Hotman says he will handle her case pro bono, as Hotman’s smallest fee is $100,000. More often he measures charges in the millions and much of it paid upfront in a lump sum. He reportedly owns 60 luxury houses around Jakarta and about 20 cars. His fingers, neck and wrists drip with very expensive bling, gold, opal and diamond rings, necklaces and watches. When I ask what his biggest fee was, he laughs and answers simply “look at all my cars”, gesturing to the models of Porsches, Mercedes and BMWs arrayed around his office.
His latest pride of his fleet is an American military-style Humvee, costing about $200,000 to put on Indonesia’s clogged roads. “If I drive this, nobody will bother to attack me,” he says. Unprompted, he flashes two sidearms at me within five minutes of sitting down. By his right side is a loaded Walther PPK, while a Beretta Tomcat is holstered under his left sock. I ask him why a civil lawyer needs a gun. “This is Jakarta,” he says, quickly assuring that “I haven’t shot anybody”.
Hotman came to the Corby case via Mark Trowell, a Perth QC. Trowell is an old friend of Australia’s Justice Minister, the West Australian Senator Chris Ellison. Trowell says he hasn’t met Hotman but background checks run by Australian diplomats in Jakarta “checked out OK”. “Just because a bloke is a little bit flamboyant doesn’t mean he’s not a good lawyer,” says Trowell.
Hotman says he has followed the Corby case in the papers, both Indonesian and Australian. He is not impressed by the extreme reaction in Australia, how her legal team has performed, and the criticism of proceedings from the Corby camp itself. “What they do so far is counter-productive. We must get the sympathy [of the court] not to provoke.” So does he think her guilty or innocent?
“Our law requires certain evidence to make someone guilty. From Indonesian aspect, once she arrived in Indonesia it looked difficult for her. In Indonesia law, no evidence supports her. From the Corby point of view, you have to provide more evidence and witnesses.
“My first suggestion is to ask all the immigration and customs officers in Australia to come to Bali to testify. Is it possible that Australian customs did not notice 4.1kg? From the Australian aspect, I don’t see yet strong evidence to say she didn’t bring anything ... from Australia. I don’t promise anything but we have to balance the evidence.”
He plans an appeal to Indonesia’s High Court, where he will effectively call for a new hearing, to present any new evidence in a retrial. Hotman suggests the High Court may ask Bali’s District Court, which has already heard the case, to hear the appeal process on its behalf. “Under our law, it’s allowed – usually with the same judges.”
Hotman says he knows District Court judge Linton Sirait, who, like him, is an ethnic Batak from the Medan region of northern Sumatra, renowned for their directness. Asked if he is a good judge, Hotman says: “I think he is quite independent.”
"The biggest problem in our court is the judges are very low paid,” he adds, saying a District Court level judge such as Sirait would be paid about $600 a month. But that’s just part of the problem. Andrew Sriro, an American lawyer in Jakarta who wrote the definitive English-language guide to Indonesia law, puts it another way. “Many Indonesian lawyers are cynical about their legal system and that cynicism can often lead to sloppy work, and smart lawyers like Hotman exploit that sloppiness.”
Hotman likes to cultivate judges socially, go to lunch, visit them at home, attend family birthdays. But he says the best way to deal with a judge is to visit them in their office “and have a very open discussion about the case. You can know the mind of the judge, what direction he goes. He will not treat you as an enemy.”
The Corby case has no obvious local advantage for Hotman. So why does to do it, and pro bono to boot? Hotman laughs. “One day I will be called by God, so I will have paid 10% of my duty as a human being.”