Mano, Oh Mano...

It seems that one can never get enough of Manohara. Well, it would seem that this is what her handlers think. Mano and her handlers are certainly courting the media at every opportunity, and getting her involved in all manner of things. The latest venture is a request to the Indonesian Constitutional Court for a judicial review of the interim law (Peraturan Pemerintah Pengganti Undang-Undang / Perpu) that authorized the Bank Century bailout.

This is not to say that the Bank Century bailout is not worthy of a judicial review of the Constitutional Court. The scandal, and it is a scandal, is probably worthy of some deeper investigation and maybe even warrants some criminal charges down the track. However, Mano's constitutional rights to claim the judicial review are the same as myriad of other Indonesians, and the cynical among us would consider this to be nothing more than opportunism with respect to getting her name in the papers and on TV.

I have not seen anything nor read anything that Manohara has said or written that would suggest that she has the capacity to understand the legal intricacies of a Constitutional Court challenge. So, perhaps it is time that she enlightened us in her own words on why it is necessary to bring such a challenge and discuss and explain a little the legal issues she is seeking to resolve at the Constitutional Court.

Her lawyers, including Farhat Abbas, have suggested that the case is a reflection of her commitment to ridding Indonesia of corruption, and of concerns she has as a good citizen of Indonesia that her tax money has gone to bailing out corruptors, and that the perpu is nothing more than legal protection for those involved. As I said, I would like to hear her articulate these things in her own words.

While she is doing that, she might also like to articulate on the case involving her mother and the alleged abuse of a domestic servant in France for which Daisy Fajarina, her mother, was convicted of and sentenced to 18 months in jail in absentia. Of particular interest would be why her mother has not returned to France to either contest the matter on appeal or to serve here sentence like a good citizen.

Meanwhile, I guess we will be hearing only from the lawyers and the media representatives, with a few sound bites tossed in for effect.

Oh well!