'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)