Rights Commission's independence

Rights Commission's independence

When it was launched in 1993, many people who wanted a speedy
establishment of democracy tended to scoff at the National
Commission on Human Rights. It was very much felt that the
Commission was formed -- by the government, not by independent
parties as is usually the case elsewhere -- above all to
accommodate international pressures, coming from donor
institutions in particular.

The public in general, however, seems to be of a different
opinion. Realizing that an institution now existed that was
willing to listen to, and perhaps to take steps to follow up
their complaints, they -- ordinary people whose property was
appropriated, land owners who were evicted and paid only a
negligible sum in compensation, or workers who were ill treated
by their employers -- came to the Commission to air their
complaints.

Naturally this phenomenon is gratifying from the point of view
of this nation's democratic ideals. At the same time it is
disheartening because it is an indication of the public's
distrust in and the inadequacy of that bigger, permanent,
constitutionally assigned and older institution: the House of
Representatives.

The fact that the larger part of complaints come from the
provinces is all the more an indication that at the provincial
level the work of the legislative council is much more
distressing.

-- Republika, Jakarta