Administration against municipal autonomy

Mustaqim Adamrah ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 06/27/2008 10:06 AM  |  City

Jakarta would be in chaos if the capital had been given municipal autonomy, legal experts hired by the administration said Thursday in a Constitutional Court hearing.

Providing legal opinions in favor of the Jakarta administration, the central government and the House of Representatives, experts said Jakarta was a city but used "province" merely as a label.

"Jakarta used to be a city led by a mayor. The government has declared Jakarta a province simply to improve cooperation between the President and the governor," said Ryas Rasyid, an expert from the Government Studies Institute.

"And there are always separate laws to control the capital to indicate that Jakarta is a special case," he said.

A number of legal experts were asked to give their opinions as the court is currently reviewing the 2007 law on Jakarta and the 2004 law on regional autonomy.

The judicial review was requested by Biem Benyamin, a member of the Regional Representatives Council from Jakarta, who said several articles in both laws breached the 1945 Constitution.

He said, unlike other provinces, Jakarta's administrative law had prevented the city from having direct mayoral and parliamentary elections at the municipality level, despite its autonomous status.

The Constitution stipulates provincial, regent and city governments must take care of their own administrative matters according to autonomy principles. It also says provinces, through cities, should have a regional parliament whose members are elected in a general election.

Biem said he filed for a review because both laws prohibited him and other citizens of Jakarta from exercising their constitutional right to become mayor through an election.

Jakarta is the only province in Indonesia, which has 33 provinces, that still has governor-appointed mayors.

However, different ordinances endorsed by each municipal legislative body, if any, would result in chaos, Ryas said.

"Imagine if every municipality in Jakarta were authorized to produce their own ordinances," he said.

"Those ordinances would discriminate against people living in certain municipalities, even though they actually live in the same Jakarta."

He said to date, no studies had showed the absence of a municipal government had slowed down public services and administrative affairs in the city.

"It's too shallow to call on municipal autonomy for Jakarta by referring to the 1945 Constitution only," Ryaas said.

Deputy Governor Prijanto, who also attended the hearing, said policies would not be well-implemented in Jakarta if every municipality had their own regulations.

"It would be hard to implement, for instance, health and education policies in a city where its residents are very active if each municipality had its own ideas," he said.

"Development will face greater constraints if there's municipal autonomy in Jakarta."

Presiding judge Jimly Asshiddiqie adjourned the session for two weeks and required both the plaintiff and the defendants to complete their legal statements.

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