Commercialized courts and limited access to legal aid have caused poor people to face inequality before the law, say observers.

"Every time we want to file a case with a court, starting from the registration to taking the oath, we spend a lot of money, which is actually not stipulated in any regulation," Jakarta Legal Aid Institute director Asfinawati said Tuesday, after the launch of a book on legal aid for the poor.

"That has hindered poor people from receiving adequate treatment before the law," she added.

Poor people, she said, tended to become pessimistic and apathetic prior to filing a case. She said that they generally believed they would have to spend a lot of money and that the verdict the court handed down would not be objective.

Taufikurrahman Saleh, a member of House of Representatives Commission III, overseeing legal and human rights issues, said: "We know that judicial institutions are still being selective when handling cases, from the indictment to the verdict."

"Oddly, police, the Attorney General's Office and the Corruption Eradication Commission, always deny that," he added.

Prominent lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution said that the 2003 Law on Advocacy had limited the provision of legal aid.

"Under the law, state officials limit the authority of activists providing legal aid," said Buyung.

"Activists can work only under the supervision of police and prison wardens. This is not right," he said, adding that the situation had resulted in fewer poor people having access to legal aid.

Asfinawati said that the image of the legal profession had resulted in fewer lawyers being interested in representing the poor.

"The people see that lawyers only appear in expensive suits, work in skyscrapers along Jakarta's main thoroughfares, making lawyers seem expensive, while lawyers tend to work solely on commercial cases," Asfin said. "This commercial attitude makes lawyers unconcerned about poor people," she added.

According to official data, as many as 16,000 lawyers serve Indonesia's 220 million people, 20 percent of whom earn less than US$2 a day.

"The statistics show that the country does not have an adequate number of lawyers. This shortage is exacerbated because they tend to work only on commercial cases," Asfinawati said.

The institute is planning to submit a draft of a bill that guarantees poor people equality before the law. "We have drafted a bill on legal aid and hope to have the House discuss it this year or early next year," Asfinawati said.

The chairman of the House's legislation body, F.X. Soekarno, said it would be impossible to discuss the draft bill this year. "The House already has 80 bills to be discussed this year, but it will be possible to put the draft bill on legal aid on next year's schedule," he said.