Hikmahanto Juwana, Jakarta
In an article that appeared in The Jakarta Post on July 19, titled Money and political interests turn our laws into dead letters, I described the sources of weaknesses in law enforcement in Indonesia. Here, I will talk about how to address these weaknesses.
First and foremost one has to see the weak law enforcement from the perspective that Indonesia is undergoing a transition.
During a transition one has to expect that various social aspects, including law, will not work properly.
Under the Soeharto administration, the law of course existed. However, at the time, law in general only had a symbolic meaning. Law enforcement may have seemed to be strong, but that was due to the power which backed law enforcement. It came as no surprise then that law enforcement was only strong when the government wanted it so.
Today the law is expected to be supreme, with every aspect of life greatly dependent on the law. However, such expectations have yet to be fulfilled for various reasons, which I discussed in the earlier article.
Second, policy-makers must accept, rather than deny, the various law enforcement problems. If this denial continues, it will only result in more problems.
Third, dealing with law enforcement issues requires a great deal of patience. Thus, there is no quick solution, much less easy answers.
Unfortunately there are still many policy-makers and legal experts who are unaware of this. They tend to look for the easy way out. Solutions are simplified by crafting laws simply expressing the opposite (""anti"") of whatever is the issue at hand.
Furthermore, policy-makers have to accept the law enforcement issues being faced by Indonesia are issues that cannot be resolved solely through the law.
In seeking solutions to law enforcement issues, room must be made for various (non-legal) disciplines to help in improving the law here.
There have been some recent encouraging developments in Indonesia. Pundits from outside the ""club"" of those possessing a legal education have begun taking part in the discourse on law enforcement issues.
Next, policy-makers must take an interest in improving the enforcement apparatus when addressing weak law enforcement. Prioritizing law enforcement apparatus (in terms of increasing the resources devoted to it) must form the basis of any solution.
This prioritization has two purposes. First, it is necessary in order to diminish the influence of money in law enforcement. Second, it is necessary to draw our ""best and brightest"" in terms of highly qualified, honest and motivated law graduates from well-known universities into public legal institutions.
The law enforcement apparatus must also make strenuous efforts for consistency in the implementation of the law.
Recent efforts to maintain consistency have often failed due to the law itself. Laws and regulations often overlap, even contradicting each other. In addition, provisions are often ambiguous and require a great deal of interpretation.
The next effort is to clean house within legal institutions in terms of disciplining the bad apples and problem staff. Many people use the simile of a broom which must be clean before it can be used to sweep the floor properly.
A workable mechanism needs to be developed for disciplining bad personnel, one that will be credible and reliable in the eyes of the public.
Cleaning house can only happen if policy-makers decide to improve welfare. This is in order to distinguish between those who abuse their office because they have no choice in economic terms, versus those ""commercializing"" their office as a matter of personal greed.
In cleaning house, extreme care must be taken since the process deals with human beings. Hence it should consider more humane approaches. The process must not violate a person's dignity, or degrade those being subjected to the policy.
Compared to legislative reform, reforming human resources or changing people's behavior is much more complicated. Changing people involves changing their mind-set. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to change long-rooted attitudes overnight.
For those who do not have the patience, the easiest solution is to replace all current personnel in legal institutions. This, however, would not ultimately solve our problems.
In some reform attempts, when a humane approach has not been used, the result has been resistance. Such resistance has rendered the process of improvement increasingly complex and time-consuming.
Last, but not least, there should be more public participation in efforts to improve our law enforcement weaknesses. Public participation does not only mean the involvement of non-governmental organizations, but also each individual within society.
The writer is professor of law at the University of Indonesia. He can be reached at hikmahanto@yahoo.com.
