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Legal reform lagging behind in Jokowi's second year
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National Police chief Gen.Tito Karnavian (second left) puts an insignia on newly inaugurated Internal Affairs Division (Propam) chief Brig. Gen. Idham Aziz (second right), who replaces Insp. Gen. M. Iriawan, during a hand-over ceremony in Jakarta on Sept. 30. (Antara/Reno Esnir)
D
espite numerous achievements accomplished by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla during their two years in office, improvement of the justice system is lagging behind that of other sectors, a legislator says.
The government was too late in planning to revitalize the legal sector in the country, which remained weak because of incompetent law enforcement institutions, said Bambang Soesatyo, chairman of the House of Representatives' Commission III overseeing legal affairs.
He said he welcomed the first part of the legal reform package, which came out just after the Jokowi administration reached its second year and focused on combating illegal levies in public services.
However, the government should be more concerned about reforming the judicial system, especially the officials, which had long been awaited by the public, Bambang asserted on Friday in Jakarta.
"Illegal levies are not the only problem in the legal sector. It's of utmost importance to strengthen measures to improve the quality of law enforcement, especially by combating the judicial 'mafia' [who manipulate cases in court]," the Golkar Party politician said.
He also applauded Jokowi’s success in consolidating the support of political parties, which resulted in more stable national politics and enabled the government to realize a number of national strategic programs.
The Jokowi-Kalla administration had also been able to introduce a more "Indonesia-centric" paradigm of development and set aside the long-standing "Java-centric" paradigm, which had resulted in more comprehensive efforts to reduce disparity between Java and other regions. (ags)
