Lessons in the past for a new constitution

By Lambert Giebels

This is the first of two articles on the inception of the Indonesian Constitution.

BREDA, The Netherlands (JP): Revision of the country's Constitution, one of the demands of university students demonstrating against Soeharto's three-decade presidency earlier this year, will inevitably resuscitate issues which played a role in its inception in 1945.

The 1945 Constitution was drafted in haste. Towards the end of the Japanese rule, the military command in Java formed a committee to prepare for an independent Indonesian nation.

The committee, which consisted only of representatives from Java, met for the first time on May 28, 1945. Three full days were spent arguing and in dead-end discussions. Then on June 1, Sukarno took the floor and gave his famous address in which he proposed Pancasila, the five pillars or principles on which the Indonesian state should be based. The five principles comprised of a belief in one supreme God, nationalism, international humanism, consensual democracy and social justice for all. The members of the committee welcomed Sukarno's proposal enthusiastically and with loud applause.

A Constitutional committee was formed under Sukarno's chairmanship to work out the details of Pancasila. Sukarno's team then submitted a number of issues which needed consideration to a plenary meeting of the committee set up to prepare for independence.

One of these issues concerned the territories of the planned state. The majority of participants in the meeting proposed that the territories should include the former Malacca (currently called Malaysia and Singapore), the Portuguese colony of eastern Timor, British-ruled areas of Borneo and all of New Guinea, besides the territories of the Dutch East Indies.

Another issue, on the planned form of government, led to a debate between Sukarno, who wanted a Unitarian state, and Mohammad Hatta, who preferred a federal state. The majority opted for a Unitarian state.

The most difficult issue to decide upon was whether Indonesia should become an Islamic state. After ample consideration, a compromise was reached which became known as the Jakarta Charter. The compromise implied that Indonesian Moslems (nominally 90 percent of the population) would be obliged to observe Islamic law and that only a Moslem could become president of the country.

After these crucial decisions had been made, Sukarno's committee were able to focus discussion on the drafting of the Constitution. For that purpose, an editorial committee was appointed under the chairmanship of Soepomo, a Leiden-educated lawyer.

Soepomo told his fellow committee members that there were three state ideologies -- liberalism, Marxism and a convergence of the two. He rejected liberalism because this would stimulate individual egoism and Marxism because it would stimulate group egoism.

According to the minutes of the meeting, he summarized his vision as follows: "The state should be neither the protector of individuals nor groups. It should be the organized community itself." He won applause from the meeting.

Never has a constitution been so energetically drafted as by Soepomo. In only one day he prepared and submitted a draft constitution. His concept was accepted by the committee on July 16 with only a few minor amendments.

However,the work of the constitutional committee was under a threat of being overtaken by the course of world events. On Aug. 7, one day after the United States dropped an atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, Sukarno and Hatta were summoned to the headquarters of Japan's Southern Armies in Saigon. The commander in chief there, Count Terauchi, informed them that the Japanese emperor planned to allow Indonesia to commence preparations for independence.

Terauchi announced the establishment of a preparatory committee which would consist of representatives from throughout Indonesia under the chairmanship of Sukarno. He also announced that the planned independence would be restricted to the territories of the Dutch East Indies and that the new state would be a federal one.

On Aug. 14, Sukarno and Hatta carried that news back to Jakarta. Time was short because the Allies had presented an ultimatum to Japan and the Soviet Union after attacking the vassal state of Mansyu-Koku in Japan. The next day, Japan capitulated.

Under pressure from youths (who abducted Sukarno and Hatta on Aug. 16), Sukarno declared Indonesia independent in the front garden of his house at 10:00 a.m. on Aug. 17. The following day, the preparatory committee elected Sukarno president and Hatta vice president. The Constitution was adopted on that same day.

All these incidents took place in the nick of time. On Aug. 19, the Japanese commander on Java informed Sukarno and Hatta that he had been instructed by Tokyo, in conformance with terms laid down by the Allies, to sustain the status quo in Japanese- occupied territories. This meant that the preparatory committee initiated by Japan had to be dissolved.

Before the Constitution was proclaimed on Aug. 18, a few important amendments to its original concept were made. For example, the initial preamble in the original constitution contained an ode to Japan and an elegy to 300 years of colonial suppression. Both passages were deleted. What remained was the rousing sentence: "Freedom is the right of all peoples and therefore the colonial system in the world must be abolished."

This statement was followed by an outline of the concept of Pancasila already formulated by Sukarno. In view of Terauchi's instruction, the idea of a Greater Indonesia was dropped. However, the idea of a Unitarian state was retained.

The most important amendment made on Aug. 18 was the scrapping of conditions intended to secure the presidency for Moslems and prevent them from turning away from their religion. These conditions were scrapped for an urgent reason. Hatta had heard rumors that non-Moslem areas in the archipelago had refused to join a possible Moslem state. He immediately saw the danger -- Christian areas such as the Moluccas, Flores, Minahasa, the Batak lands in Sumatra and the Hindu island of Bali might seek their fortune with the Netherlands. After hasty consultation with Moslem leaders, the preparatory committee decided to drop the two conditions.

The 1945 Constitution shows the influence of various constitutional perceptions.

American influence can be seen in the presidential system. Under the Constitution, the president is commander in chief of the Armed Forces, can declare war and peace and has the prerogative right to appoint and dismiss ministers who are answerable to him alone. The American constitution states that the sovereignty of the people is embodied in Congress, while the Indonesian Constitution stipulates that the peoples' sovereignty lies in the hands of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

The MPR, which convenes at least once every five years, appoints a president and vice president and determines the state policy guidelines which should be implemented by the country's executive body in the ensuing five years.

The Constitution does not explicitly state that the MPR can dismiss the president, but this seems to be implied by the fact that it is responsible for making the appointing in the first place. The president for his part cannot dissolve the MPR. When Soeharto stepped down and appointed Habibie as his successor, he referred to a section of the Constitution which states: "In case of becoming deceased, resigning or ineptitude in fulfilling his task, the president will be replaced by the vice president to the end of his term in office," -- an article which again bears a resemblance to parts of the American constitution.

Some influence of the Dutch constitution is revealed by the adoption of a decentralized Unitarian state. This is a state in which the local authorities (in provinces, regencies and municipalities) have a certain degree of autonomy, under the supervision of the central government. These devolution of power lead Hatta to give up his objections to a Unitarian state.

The writer is a Dutch historian who is now in the process of writing a biography on the life of Indonesia's first president Sukarno to be published by the end of next year.

Window: Never has a constitution been so energetically drafted as by Soepomo. In only one day he prepared and submitted a draft constitution. His concept was accepted by the committee on July 16 with only a few minor amendments.