The Special Panel for Serious Crimes (in East Timor) had convicted a person named Dos Santos of three counts of murder. The prosecution argued that Dos Santos should have been convicted as a Crime against Humanity rather than of murder under the Indonesian Criminal Code.

The East Timor Court of Appeal, which is acting as the country’s highest court until it can set up a permanent supreme court, decided that the applicable subsidiary law in East Timor is that of Portugal, rather than that of Indonesia. It also held that parts of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTEAT) Regulation 2000/15, which established the Special Panel for Serious Crimes, was invalid. As of 2003, the Court of Appeal had continued to apply Portuguese law while the district courts had applied Indonesian law, leading to uncertainty as to which law would be applied in any given case.

The Court also found that the application of Indonesian law from 1975 to 1999, during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, was unlawful under international law. Therefore, Indonesian law had never been validly applied in East Timor. The Court made this decision based partly out of consideration of principles of international law.

The dissent considered United Nations Regulations 1/1999 and argued that Indonesian law should be the proper subsidiary law in East Timor.

http://www.jsmp.minihub.org/Reports/jsmpreports/Armando%20dos%20Santos's%20case%20reports%202003/Armando%20Dos%20Santos%20report(e).pdf