Quote Originally Posted by slavedriver
4. In America you are innocent till proved guilty in Indonesia you are guilty till proven innocent an entirely different legal system to what you are used to
In Western countries you aren't supposed to have a conviction if there is "reasonable doubt", and that is what the defence is trying to establish. Possibly in Indonesia there is a greater burden on the defence, but the prosecution still has to make its case - they're not supposed to just assume that the police got it right.

Since quoting the SMH seems to be the order of the topic, here's an article to that affect: http://www.smh.com.au/news/Miranda-D...533585154.html (I can't believe I'm quoting a Miranda Divine column with approval... unclean! unclean! ick. Your Honour, in my defence I'd like to point out that she's not expressing her own opinion in this article)

The main difference (according to my legal theory lecturer) is that the Indonesians don't have quite the same take on the "better ten guilty men walk free than one innocent man go to gaol" principle that dictates a lot of the rules of evidence in countries like the USA and Australia.

We in the West (and yes, I'm Australian) are stunned and shocked when the Indonesians convict on evidence that our systems would automatically put huge questions marks over. Indonesians are stunned and shocked when "clearly" guilty people are acquitted in Western countries because of some technical breach in the handling of evidence. We think they're crazy, they think we're crazy. What fun

And on the topic of the drugs themselves... don't forget that there are a lot of different types of marijuana. I read somewhere that the variety in question is relatively cheap in Australia and quite expensive in Bali - so there was a sound economic reason to import it into Bali.

As for our government intervening... I'd be more interested in seeing them do something for David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay, or for the several hundred innocent people going stir-crazy in immigration detention centres on our own soil.