'Legal system rife with inconsistencies'

'Legal system rife with inconsistencies'

DEPOK, West Java (JP): Indonesia's legal system must be purged
of its inconsistencies to provide all of the country's citizens
with uncompromised legal certainty, a senior law expert said on
Saturday.

Speaking at her inauguration, Louisa Magdalena Lapian Gandhi
likened Indonesian laws and regulations to "tangled-up yarn" and
spoke of the need to address the system's injustices.

Louisa, the 19th professor inaugurated at the prestigious
University of Indonesia this year, cited a number of examples to
illustrate the legal system's less than harmonious state.

Contradictions can be found in various pieces of legislation,
between laws and regulations, between laws and government
policies and even between laws and Supreme Court orders.
Contradictions are also in abundance between central and regional
government policies, she said.

"Whenever there is disharmony, usually citizens, as the
justice seekers, fall victim," said the 60-year-old lecturer at
the University's School of Law. "The people, whom the law should
actually protect, become the victims of legal uncertainty and
injustice."

Louisa, who hails from Manado in North Sulawesi, served as a
House of Representatives member between 1977 and 1982. She has
also conducted studies and written about discriminative practices
against women workers.

In her speech, Louisa also argued for a legal system that is
more responsive to the needs of justice seekers, instead of
simply applying the formal written laws.

The National Legal System "must be open, but not to the extent
that it can no longer uphold the philosophical, cultural and
judicial values that reflect the character of the Indonesian
people," she said. (anr)