The timing could not have been worse. On the eve of the International Human Rights Day, the Constitutional Court last week annulled the legislation establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, thus dashing the hopes of the many victims of human rights abuses for justice and some form of compensation.

This is a commission that was the result of a long and painful debate, and not just in the House of Representatives, but also among the wider public, who have embarked on a soul-searching process after the 1998 collapse of the Soeharto regime. Many of the proponents of the commission traveled to countries like South Africa in search of the right model to adapt for Indonesia.

This is a body upon which many expectations had been pinned; that the gamut of political tragedies afflicting this nation, many of which are still shrouded in mystery, would once and for all be solved.

This would have been the body to help clear the national conscience for our collective sins. We cannot move forward unless we put our past behind us once and for all.

This commission would have given the final seal of approval to Indonesia's democratic credentials, for it would have put an end the culture of impunity, especially for human rights violators.

Yet, with just a stroke of a pen, the Constitutional Court made sure that the commission was dead before delivery.

Was there a conspiracy involving the court and the President? One could certainly be forgiven for thinking so.

The list of nominations for the lineup of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had been sitting on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono desk for more than a year. His failure to even address the delay in making his final selection raised suspicions he was reluctant to engage himself in this affair. In the absence of any other explanation from his office, one could only speculate. And the next logical question would be: who was he really defending?

Could it be the reputation of his late father-in-law, Gen. Sarwo Edhie, who was the commander of the Army's special forces RPKAD (now Kopassus) at the time of the massacre (some describe it as genocide) of the suspected communists in 1965-66? Or is it Soeharto, the Army general in charge at the time (and thus Sarwo Edhie's immediate supervisor) who subsequently became president and ruled this country, chiefly through terror and violence, for the next three decades or so.

Neither man has been made accountable for the horror that took place then, so nasty that most people today who lived through those years would rather not talk about it. But we all can agree that this episode was one of the dark pages in the history of this nation.

Of course many other tragic human rights violations took place under Soeharto that the commission, if it had been appointed and started working, would have looked into. Among them are the invasion of East Timor in 1975, the silencing of Soeharto's critics over many years, the mysterious shootings of the 1980s, the clashes in Tanjung Priok, and others in Lampung, Aceh, Papua and here in Jakarta.

But out of all these bloody episodes that have become the hallmarks of Soeharto's rule, the massive bloodshed of the early years of his presidency is the most important and the most urgently in need of explanation.

Some of the chief protagonists in this affair, including Soeharto himself, are still alive, but not for much longer given their advancing ages.

Time is therefore running out for the nation to establish the truth about so much in the New Order era. For now, we have to contend with conspiracy theories to try to explain much that has happened in this country.

The court ruling canceling the legislation went much further than what the petitioners had asked. They only wanted the court to strike down three articles. Instead, it struck down the entire legislation.

Typically, now the blame game has started. Some people have fingered the House of Representatives for producing such defective and inconsistent legislation. Others have targeted the court for playing politics.

In the meantime, the truth remains illusive, and justice elusive in this country.