Providing Justice to the Justice Seeker: - Family Court of Australia

The party seeking to have the court fee waived will need to present a letter from the villagehead (the ‘poverty letter’, surat keterangan tidak mampu – SKTM) as evidence of the party’spoverty. The court will register the case and the court receipt that is placed in the court filehas a nil value. 34The court will then require the applicant to attend a hearing before a panel of three judgesto present evidence establishing their poverty. The judicial panel will issue a determinationon whether to accept the case on a fee waiver basis after giving any other party to the case theopportunity to be heard on the issue. If the judicial panel rejects the fee waiver petition thenthe case will only proceed if the party pays the usual court fee down-payment for the case.The Indonesian Statistics Agency (BPS) has developed national poverty indicators and insome areas between 20 and 50% of the population is considered to be living under theIndonesian poverty line. Each year BPS issues a document fixing the Indonesian poverty lineand the percentage of the population in each province that falls under the Indonesian povertyline. In March 2009, 32.5 million Indonesian citizens (14% of the population) lived belowthe Indonesian poverty line, defined as Rp 222,123 for city areas and Rp 179,835 for ruralareas (with an average poverty line for city and village as Rp 200,262 per person per monthor USD0.66 per day). The percentage of Indonesian citizens living below the poverty line inthe rural areas (17%) is significantly higher than for city dwellers (11%).Of 33 Indonesian provinces, the table opposite shows those provinces where more than 20%of the rural population live under the Indonesian poverty line. 35In addition to the national poverty line indicator, the US$ 2 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)per day per capita is also used as an indicator to measure poverty. According to this measure,the National Planning Development Agency (Bappenas – Badan Perencanaan PembanagunanNasional) states that in 2006 around 49% of the population of Indonesia was living on lessthan US$ 2 (PPP) a day. 36 If applied to the 14 poorest provinces shown in the table above,the majority of the provincial population would fall under the US$2 (PPP) per day per capitapoverty indicator.In order to obtain evidence of poverty, men and women must approach the village leaderfor a letter certifying that they are in fact poor. In circumstances of wide-spread ruralimpoverishment village leaders may not understand that a high proportion of the villagersin their area are living under the Indonesian poverty line and therefore eligible for a povertyletter. Instead, as the test is a subjective test and based on the village leader’s perception, theymay only allocate a poverty letter to those who appear to be the poorest in their area.34 Herzien Inlandsch Reglement (HIR) Article 237.35 Profil Kemiskinan Di Indonesia Maret 2009, Badan Pusat Statistik, Berita Resmi Statistik No. 43/07/Th. XII, 1 Juli 2009.36 Bappenas UNDP (2007) Report on the Achievement of Millennium Development Goals Indonesia 2007, p 12.26 Providing Justice to the Justice Seeker A Report on the Access and Equity Study in theIndonesian General and Religious Courts 2007–2009