Navigating Legal Strategies: Dropping Charges Before Facing Court in Indonesia
|The legal system in Indonesia follows a certain set of procedures and steps that are usually prone to occur in a business environment. Knowing and understanding the legal procedures could prove useful for the future of your business, as they help you conduct an effective risk management dealing with any legal threats that could potentially harm your business. A good example is the case where legal charges are filed against your business, or your employees face certain criminal accusations. Charges in a business environment could not only lead the company to lose lots of money, but also irreparably damage the trust of clients or business partners toward the company. Some businesses may also face damages to their reputation if victims corporeal injury on their hands, as well as the loss of many good employees leaving the company.
In this article, we will analyze the some of the legal procedures that tend to happen in a business environment that could lead to severe legal consequences threatening the business’ existence in the short term or in the long term, and we will take legal charges as an example of the kinds of procedures for the sake of our analysis. Then we will see how knowing and anticipating those procedures could help keep your business afloat and help it recover from the downsides of a potential legal fight, as the information provided by the subsequent steps of the article will show you.
The aforementioned valid legal charges against you or your employees will probably be the consequence of a certain civil action against your business that turned into a criminal action after the initial proceedings of the civil case. In other words, if the business is charged with an intentional infliction of corporeal harm to a customer of our business, it could have been because we lost the case regarding the claim filed against the company before the civil courts, and after losing the case the customer decided to file criminal charges against our company. The underlying cause of the claim could be a breach of contract, the provision of low quality products or services, or even the simple dismissal of an employee who claims to have been discriminated in the working process if that employee ends up filing a lawsuit for unfair termination.
Perhaps the main reason why companies ask whether can you drop charges against someone before court is that they want to avoid the risks associated with the possibility of one of their employees facing a criminal charge that ends up leading to a conviction and to a prison sentence for that employee. Many businesses would immediately dismiss any employee who faces legal charges that could lead to a criminal conviction, thus acting against the personal interest of that employee and his or her chances in having an opportunity to defend themselves in court. Of course, that kind of reaction from the employer could severely hinder the relationship between the employee and the employer in the future, and it could even lead to future claims for unfair termination filed by that employee against the company. For the aforementioned reasons, avoiding a criminal conviction of your employees should be your first priority, and to that end we advise you to find those employees that were charged but that were not convicted and then drop the charges against them, if that is your preferred course of action. Another example that could lead to the need to drop the charges would be if there are no valid evidences or justifications, according to a cost-benefit analysis made together with your attorney, regarding the filing of the charges at all.
After the aforementioned introduction, let us analyze the following steps and guidelines to avoid the risk of suffering a criminal conviction and a lawsuit against your business: The aforementioned step-by-step should help you realize that wishing to drop the charges is an expression of ignorance of the possibilities before a person or company is charged with a criminal offense. The first step in the process, when knowing that the civil lawsuit has escalated into a criminal charge against either you or your employee or both of you, should be to take a moment and go through the reflections listed above and ask yourself whether that person should be facing criminal charges or whether instead other options should be explored to avoid the negative effects to your company’s business. If you reach the conclusion that the charges should be dropped, and that they cannot be dropped by means of negotiation, then you can file the necessary paperwork and attend the hearing to request that the judge issue an order dropping the charges in that specific case.
Among the benefits that knowing the procedure regarding charging a company with a crime can bring, we can find a better corporate image and a better reputation for the company if the company takes the time and exerts the efforts to investigate the truthfulness of the accusations before its employees are criminally charged, or before suffering a civil action that escalated into a criminal accusation. In general, knowing the law and legal processes applicable to your business at a given time can help you manage your business accordingly and help you minimize the negative effects caused by the filing of those legal actions against you. Having an attorney on your side that can help you deal with any legal procedures and understand the risks involved on them can also be a significant help; they can help you always opt for that course of action that is least risky for your business, or that offers the most chance for recovery of the damages suffered if the risk cannot be avoided.
Under no circumstances you should try to handle any legal issues by yourself, and the same goes for the process of filing a petition to pass the judgment to court so that they release a sentence granting your petition to drop the charges against you. While it is not strictly necessary, having the backing of an attorney with experience in this matters will help you win more often than not. Make sure to always consult an attorney in case you face any legal issue, to avoid turning a minor problem into an uncontrollable monster.
For more information on legal procedures, you can visit USA.gov.