Constitutional sustainability

Constitutional sustainability

It should be a remorseful record for the article, titled
Rebirth of Constitution without legitimacy (The Jakarta Post,
Nov. 28) to disclose the alleged failures in attempts to redraft
the Constitution throughout the periods of 1945, 1949, 1950, 1956
to 1959 and 1999-2002 till today. Such revelation of
constitutional inconsistencies leads to the following question:
If the record is true, shouldn't the scholars of constitutional
law have been admonished for the reported failures in the
redrafting of the Constitution?

During the period of revolution, Indonesia already had the
1945 Constitution, meeting, given the precarious conditions and
exigencies of the period, the formal requirements for the
legality and legitimacy of the measures taken as solutions to
constitutional problems.

Contrary to the alleged failures in the redrafting of the
Constitution, the national leaders and the jurists at that time
made a masterful achievement with the transformation of the
federal system of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia
(R.U.S.I; RIS) to the unitarian system of the Republic of
Indonesia (RI) by virtue of the Charter of Agreement of May 19,
1950 on the establishment of the unitarian state concluded
between the R.U.S.I. government and the RI government.

The outstanding historical feature in the constitutional law
of RI was that the Republic was a constituent state (of the total
16 states) within the R.U.S.I. and that before May 16, 1959 all
constituent states had declared merger with RI, while East
Sumatra as a constituent state had expressed the desire to join
the newly projected unitarian state via the R.U.S.I.

As a milestone in the transformation process from the federal
system back to the unitarian system, the Charter of Agreement
declared the formation of the unitarian state "as a
materialization of the concept of RI aimed at in the Proclamation
(of Independence) of Aug. 17, 1945."

The federal system of R.U.S.I., existing since Dec. 27, 1949
following the transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlands)
lasted for only eight months as on Aug. 15, 1950 the Provisional
Constitution of R.I. -- as the new unitarian state -- was
promulgated.

To crown this constitutional achievement, in September 1950
Indonesia joined the United Nations as its 60th member.

So the rebuke about the range of failures in the history of
Indonesian constitutional law may seem unwarranted. Emulating the
founding fathers in their success to preserve constitutional
sustainability, the incumbent Constitutional Commission should
make this success their exemplary spiritual and motivating
guidance to accomplish their noble task.

S. SUHAEDI

Jakarta