Lawyers call for one bar associations
JAKARTA (JP): The Association of Indonesian Lawyers (IPHI) called on Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman to make one last ditch to unite the various groups of lawyers into a single association.
"We welcome and will support the minister's efforts to establish one bar association in Indonesia," IPHI chairman Abdul Aziz Mohamad Balhmar said on Wednesday.
Aziz said Indonesian lawyers must unite before foreign lawyers begin arriving to practice in Indonesia, which will be possible under the newly ratified General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which comes into force on January 1.
Greater trade conflicts between Indonesian and foreign companies are likely with the greater trade liberalization mandated under GATT and this means that Indonesian lawyers would often have to deal with foreign lawyers.
Oetojo in his a year-end media conference on Tuesday emphasized that the government also wants to see only a single bar association because that would make supervision and communication with lawyers a great deal easier.
The minister said he was prepared to act as a catalyst for the establishment of the united bar association.
A single association for every profession is also mandated by a 1985 legislation on mass organizations. The government for example will only recognize one association of journalists (Indonesian Journalists Union), one labor union (All Indonesia Workers Union).
Uniting a bunch of lawyers however has proven more difficult, in part because of divergence interests of people in the government.
The first attempt at uniting the various lawyers organizations was in 1985 with the establishment of Ikadin, the Indonesian Bar Association, which came at the initiative of the chief justice and the minister of justice of the time.
Ikadin however was beset by internal disputes and in 1990, 135 of its 850 members resigned and formed a rival organization, the Indonesian Advocates' Association (AAI), with the blessing of the minister of justice of the time.
In 1991, supported by the minister of justice and minister of home affairs of the time, AAI and five lawyers' organizations -- IPHI, LBPH Kosgoro, BPKH MKGR, LKBH Trisula and LPPH -- joined forces to establish Poperi, the Association of Indonesian Lawyers Organizations.
But the exclusion of Ikadin undermined its claim to be the sole umbrella organization for the lawyers' profession.
IPHI was established in 1987 mostly by young lawyers who were disgruntled over being denied membership in Kadin which imposed strict criteria. It has since grown to bring membership to over 5,000 lawyers in 25 provinces.
Aziz set one term for the establishment of a single bar association -- that it does not discriminate against junior lawyers, the very reason IPHI was established in 1987.
"The bar association must accept and consider all lawyers equally," he said. "It must accommodate all lawyers and legal consultants, whether they are law school graduates or not."
"We might not have established IPHI if Ikadin had accepted our membership in 1987," he added.
Meanwhile Yan Juanda Saputra, a deputy chairman of IPHI, called for the enactment of a law on advocates first before any new effort is made at establishing a single bar association.
"The law on advocates will help direct the establishment of a single bar association." he said. (imn)