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| God's Divine Law in Action in Indonesia |
This happened in Indonesia.
What the law could not provide, the judge did.
Praise the Lord!
This is a touching story of a “nenek” who stole a piece of tapioca for her hungry grandchild charged in
court in a country rich in natural resources, minerals and oil and gas but the
majority of whose rakyat are living below the poverty
line.
The Nenek
An
Indonesian Judge, Marzuki, was sitting in judgment of an old woman who pleaded
guilty to stealing some tapioca from a plantation.
In her
defence, she pleaded that she did this because she was poor, her son was sick
and her grandchild was hungry.
The
plantation manager insisted that she be punished as a deterrent to others.
The judge, going through the documents, then looked up and told
thenenek,
“I’m sorry but I cannot make any exception to the law and you must be
punished.”
Accordingly, our nenek was fined Rp1 million (US$100) or
jailed two-and-a-half years. She wept as she could not pay the fine.
The
judge then took off his hat, put in Rp1 million into it and said, “In the name
of justice, I fine all who are in the court Rp50000 (US$5.50) as dwellers of
this city and letting a child starve until her grandmother had to steal to feed
her grandchild. The registrar shall now collect the fines from all the
accused.”
The court collected Rp3.5
million (US$200). Once the fine was paid off, the rest was given to our nenek. The fines
collected included those from the plantation manager!
This
short story succinctly shows what a judge can do to achieve justice, despite
the sometimes inhuman strictures of man-made law. To his eternal credit, Judge
Marzuki meted out justice of a divine variety.
With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone. – Oscar Wilde
