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)