Notes from a Coffee Shop on the Distance That Ought to Be Kept Between the Green Baize and the Camera Phone
My regular coffee shop has one unwritten rule: customers may stare at their phone screens only after their coffee has arrived. That morning the rule was broken by every table at once, because a video was passing from hand to hand. It showed a group of people said to be prosecutors, standing close to a witness, with phone lenses trained on them in the spirit of souvenir hunters. Some viewers swore they had seen a wink. Others said it must have been courtroom dust. I stirred my coffee and reflected that dust, in the history of the judiciary, has never yet been admitted as evidence.
The facts, at least according to the reports, were these. On Thursday, 5 November 2026, the East Jakarta District Court heard the case of two defendants, Roy Suryo and Tifauzia Tyassuma (dr. Tifa), who are charged with slander and defamation of the seventh President, Joko Widodo, over allegations that his diploma was forged. The former president attended as a witness. After the hearing broke up, a video circulated that was said to show several prosecutors posing for photographs with him. I should say frankly that I did not witness it myself. In the reports I read, there was no official explanation from the Prosecution Service about it either.
The first reaction came from dr. Tifa, one of the defendants, who called the matter serious, cited Prosecution Service Regulation No. 4 of 2024 on the Code of Conduct for Prosecutors, and said she intended to report it. A careful observer will naturally note that the loudest critic is a party on trial, and anyone with a stake is reasonably suspected of bringing an interest. But a criticism is not wrong merely because the person voicing it sits in the dock. The question she raised stands on its own, and its answer does not depend on who asks.
The question is not whether the prosecutors were taking sides. To conclude that, one needs far heavier proof than a photograph, and a photograph can be taken for a thousand reasons invisible from outside. The question is far simpler and far older: is it fitting for prosecutors handling a major case to pose side by side with one of the interested parties in it? A classic maxim of the English-speaking legal world holds that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. Its meaning is plain: what is guarded is not only the truth inside one's own head, but also the trust inside other people's.
The best analogy I found in this very coffee shop. Picture a village football match. The referee may be honest to the bone, but if at half-time he is caught embracing the home side's goal scorer and smiling for a photograph, the spectators will not wait for the second whistle before they start to whisper. They do not accuse him of cheating; they merely ask why the warmth could not wait until full time. The scales in a coffee shop are the same. An honest seller need not shun his customers, but he takes care that nobody can imagine his finger pressing down on one side.
Of course, some will say it was merely documentation. A former president is not easily refused; anyone standing near him is likely to want to capture the moment, and a smile in front of a camera is no criminal offence. That defence is reasonable and deserves a respectful hearing. Yet precisely because the case has drawn national attention, and because every party is beset by suspicion, the standard of ethical caution ought to rise a notch, not drop. In a trivial case, a group photograph yields only a photograph. In a case watched by millions, it can yield interpretations, and interpretations, in a country fond of reading winks, grow faster than a pile of case files.
The irony is that the courtroom that day was already rich in drama without any need for a photo session. A defendant burst out laughing when the certificates were displayed. A lawyer and a prosecutor shouted at each other until the judge had to adjourn the hearing. A question with little bearing on the main case was put, and the witness objected. Amid all this, I thought, the one party that ought to look entirely calm, flat and dull is the prosecution, since dullness is the sign of an institution working by procedure, not by spotlight. The role of celebrity was already crowded in that hall, and the stage had no room for more extras.
So the strongest criticism of this episode, in my view, is not an accusation that the prosecutors were partial, but a judgement that the act did too little to protect the appearance of impartiality, the capital of trust bequeathed to every legal institution. Formal authority makes an institution powerful, but trust makes it respected, and trust, like coffee grounds, settles easily and is hard to lift. Once it is eroded, every later step, even a truly correct one, will be read with suspicious eyes. Whether this breaches the code of conduct or not is a matter for official examination through the proper channels, not for comment at a coffee-shop table or in the replies beneath a post.
That evening I finished my coffee and put away my phone in a muddle of feelings. I do not know what happened behind the scenes, and have no wish to guess. What I do know is that the cheapest remedy for a problem of this kind needs scarcely any new regulation: keep the camera in the pocket until the verdict is read, and let the courtroom be a little dull. The judge's gavel need sound only once, and the phone's shutter can wait until everyone has gone home. For justice, like good coffee, needs no pose to be enjoyed. It needs only to arrive as it is, properly measured, and favouring no one who happens to hold the spoon.
