Public hearings need to be taken seriously

Public hearings need to be taken seriously

A two-day public hearing on forest management starts in Jakarta today. Arief Budiman takes a close look at this unprecedented event.

SALATIGA, Central Java (JP): Former environment and population minister Emil Salim said over the weekend that a public hearing on forest management will be held in Jakarta today and tomorrow. The public hearing is part of the ongoing Second Conference of the Word Commission on forestry and sustainable Development.

Emil is the chairperson of the conference's executive committee. He said indigenous people, government officials, scientists, representatives of NGOs, donor countries and other organizations would be invited.

The idea of having a public hearing before a public policy is formulated has to be cheered. If the opinions expressed at the conference could be incorporated in the forthcoming forest management policy, there is no doubt that a constructive policy will be produced.

Holding public hearings is not a new concept in Indonesia. Last year, when he received an honorary doctorate degree from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, the head of the National Development Planning Board Ginandjar Kartasasmita mentioned the importance of having public hearings before public policy is formulated. His statement attracted press coverage, and many people supported him. However, nothing concrete has developed since then.

This will strengthen the public impression that Ginandjar's speech was no more than another public speech by a high-ranking official that goes no further than the room in which it is delivered.

Ginandjar himself has not pursued his appeal in a dramatic way. However, in a silent way, something did happen. A sort of public hearing was conducted by Ginandjar. This happened when he accused some NGOs last year of giving damaging information to the international community about the family planning program in Indonesia. The accused NGOs responded and Ginandjar invited them, together with other NGOs, to his office to have a sort of public hearing. Many misunderstandings and mistakes on the part of Ginandjar came to the surface. I don't know what the concrete result of this meeting was. However, I do think what Ginandjar did is something to be praised.

Now Emil Salim has again raised the issue. Unlike Ginandjar, Emil talked in concrete terms. He mentioned the dates of the public hearing, the topic and who will be invited. In this sense, there is some progress in this business of holding public hearings before formulating policy.

We have to praise this progress, but we can't avoid being skeptical. The Indonesian people have witnessed many public hearings at the House of Representatives on many issues. Much useful advice has been given, many mistakes have been pointed out, many good suggestions have been proposed, and yet the results has been discouraging, if not quite non-existent. This is why the House got its nick name: the 5-D institution. For it is considered an institution where the members practice the 5-Ds: "datang, duduk, dengar, diam, duit" (Come, Sit, Listen, Keep Quiet and Get Money).

This doesn't mean that members of the House do not care. They do. Some of them have been concerned about many problems in society. Many of them try to do something but to no avail. The problem is not that they don't care, but that they don't have the power. They may have symbolic power, but real power is not in their hands.

So, the information that they succeed in gathering can't be transformed into public policies. They become public knowledge, but the damaging public policies stay.

The main question that has to be asked of the public hearing that Emil Salim wants to organize for the WCFSD conference is whether it will affect forest management policy? The answer goes back to the question whether the Minister of Forestry has enough power to fight the vested interests that take huge advantage of the mismanagement of forestry.

We all know that mismanagement in forestry has been so obvious that we don't really need a public hearing to look for the hidden problems. What we need is the power to act. And alas, this is exactly what we don't have. In this situation, it is likely that the public hearing will serve more as an entertaining event, where people will hear how silly we have been without having any power to change it.

However, the idea of having public hearing has to be welcomed by all of us. I suggest that after this, it may be a good idea to have a public hearing on corruption at all levels of public office. A public hearing on the government's intention to build a nuclear power plant in Jepara has also to be conducted very soon. Even if there is no follow up, we can't say that we are not being entertained by all these public hearings.

The writer is a researcher and sociologist living in Salatiga.