Legal awareness must be fostered

Legal awareness must be fostered

It is a fact that the application of a legal system in
Indonesia at present is still weak, as well as biased toward and
vulnerable to political pressure and lacking in the full
enforcement of legal certainty across the country, a condition
which makes it difficult for the community to obtain justice. As
such, we, lawyers associated under the New Indonesia Lawyers
Club, an organization set up on May 4, 2000, hereby reaffirm our
resolve as follows:
1. It is of great necessity now to foster legal awareness through
a consolidated mission to spread a legal culture, in the form of
forums for the popularization of a legal culture, the improvement
of the global networking of lawyers and a continued updating of
the professionalism of lawyers in the framework of national unity
and the integrity of the Indonesian nation and state. This it
toward a view to rectifying irregular practices in Indonesia,
such as the denial of the basic values of the Indonesian nation,
leading to reduced transparency in the processes by which
political decisions are made and a disregard for legal
sovereignty and the principle of equality;
2. Therefore, as agents of change, we must, in a constructive
manner, be able to think in an integrated way and be in
possession of legal awareness regarding law enforcement, through
a wide variety of efforts to undertake sustainable reform in the
legal culture.

It is our hope that all parties concerned will be inspired by
the above to ensure that a system of legal enforcement may be
properly applied.

DR. R.M. TALIB PUSPOKUSUMO et al

Jakarta