Govt mulls revising land decree
Govt mulls revising land decree
Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The controversial presidential decree on land acquisition may
come under revision due to mounting opposition from non-
governmental organizations and lawmakers, says Cabinet Secretary
Sudi Silalahi.
Speaking during Monday's hearing with House of Representatives
Commission II on agrarian affairs, Sudi said, however, that the
process would not be straightforward.
"We'll review the criticisms but, due to the nature of the
regulation, revising it will take a lot of time and thought," he
said.
Presidential Decree No. 36/2005, issued recently, has sparked
strong protests from non-governmental organizations and House
members as it allows the government to take over land for
development purposes, even if the land owner does not accept the
government's compensation offer.
The Cabinet Secretariat is in charge of drafting all
presidential decrees, regulations and instructions.
Commission I gave Sudi during the hearing documents that it
had compiled, containing articles for consideration and points of
revision for the new land decree.
Commission members were of the opinion that the decree opened
chances for discriminatory measures by authorities due to the
multi-interpretative meaning of "public interest", and to
arbitrarily take over private land if they failed to take into
account Law No. 20/1961 on the retraction of rights over land and
objects on it.
They also saw room for collusion between the government and
investors in the acquisition process, a gross monopoly with the
establishment of an "independent price appraiser" that was
appointed by the government itself, and a repressive element due
to the limited negotiation period.
While the commission acknowledged that enacting the regulation
was the government's right, it said legislators would serve to
monitor the implementation.
Legislator Eddy Mihati said the government had actually
violated Law No. 10/2004 on the enactment of regulations and laws
that states any regulations involving public interests or human
rights have to be accommodated in the form of a law.
"Furthermore, the House is already scheduled in 2006 to
deliberate a law on land acquisition for public interests. The
government probably wanted to overtake us on this issue to avoid
deliberating with us," he argued.
In response, Sudi said the decree's enactment had been pushed
by Minister of Public Works Djoko Kirmanto and Coordinating
Minister for the Economy Aburizal Bakrie for reasons of
attracting foreign investment and development purposes.
"This is an urgent situation, to ensure legal certainty for
development works, such as infrastructure projects, which have
been planned but are yet to commence due to legal problems," he
said.
However, he failed to elaborate further on the urgency of the
decree, to the disappointment of legislators.
The House has become the latest voice to demand that the
government shelve the decree.
A number of non-governmental organizations are currently
seeking public support to file a request for a judicial review,
and plan to submit it to the Supreme Court on July 29.
Activists have condemned the decree, a renewed version of
presidential regulation No. 55/1993, as it could lead to human
rights problems in the future with forced evictions and
intimidation -- practices common after the old regulation was
imposed.