Law commission plans to hold public hearings

Law commission plans to hold public hearings

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission for Law will hold four
public hearings in Jakarta this month as part of its program to
draw up a series of white papers on reforming the legal sector.

Commission chairman J.E. Sahetapy told journalists that the
hearings were intended to absorb as much public opinion as
possible to reform the country's entire legal system which he
admitted was in a dismal state.

Many of the participants at the hearings will be legal experts
from outside Jakarta, he said during a luncheon with senior
journalists.

Commission secretary Mardjono Reksodiputro said the nation
faced an uphill task in reforming the legal sector because it had
been virtually neglected for the last 30 years.

"In spite of the endless talks about the supremacy of law, we
are falling behind other countries on just about every front
(such as) the judiciary, the legal institutions and
professionalism."

Sahetapy described the job as "cleaning up house" and that it
must start at the very top, with revamping the Supreme Court.

The first public hearing on Sept. 6 will be on the legislative
role of the House of Representatives and the second, on Sept. 7,
on the role of the law in the economic recovery process. The
other two hearings on Sept. 12 and Sept. 13 will be on good
governance and law administration; and law education and
professional discipline respectively.

These follow two public hearings by the commission in May, on
the judiciary and on an integrated criminal judiciary.

The commission, established by a presidential decree in
February, is made up of six respected legal experts; Sahetapy, a
law professor and member of the House of Representatives for the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan);
Mardjono Reksodiputro, former dean of the School of Law,
University of Indonesia; Frans Hendra Winarta, a lawyer; Mohammad
Fajrul Falaakh, a law professor from Gadjah Mada University;
Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, a law professor from the University of
Indonesia; and Suhadibroto, former deputy attorney general.

Besides advising President Abdurrahman Wahid on legal reforms,
the commission has been asked by the head of state to design the
concept of reforming Indonesia's legal system.

Sahetapy said the next stage in the commission's work, after
the public hearings, would be to set up various working groups to
draw up the white papers, possibly early next year.

Suhadibroto said the commission hoped to complete the
recommendations before the President presents his annual progress
report to the People's Consultative Assembly in August 2001.

In order to ensure good public participation, the commission
is also working on launching its own website soon which would not
only allow the public to monitor the commission's work but also
to give their opinion.

Sahetapy disclosed that to date, the commission has not
received any financial assistance from the government, in spite
of a promise that its work would be funded by the latter.

All six commission members have been working voluntarily using
their own offices and facilities.

Staff salaries at the secretariat are being paid from
donations from foreign organizations. The upcoming public
hearings will be funded by Asia Foundation and the USAID.

When Media Indonesia editor and former ambassador to Vietnam
Djafar Assegaff criticized the commission for accepting foreign
donations, cautioning that there was no such thing as a "free
lunch", commission members pledged that it was a temporary
measure until the government disbursed the promised funds.

"We just need starting capital. We're not going to depend on
foreign funding," Mardjono said, adding that the commission had
been approached by various foreign and international
organizations with offers of grants and loans. (emb)