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House nixes family resilience bill

The House of Representatives was split on the decision to continue deliberating the bill, but concerns about intrusion into people's private matters were enough to drive the agenda into the ground – for now.

Galih Gumelar (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, November 27, 2020

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House nixes family resilience bill

T

he House of Representatives decided to halt all deliberation of the controversial family resilience bill this week, after concerns among several party factions about legislative overreach into people’s private lives led to an end to the process.

The House Legislative Body (Baleg) announced the decision during a hearing session on Tuesday, in which five out of the nine factions at the House voted against continuing the deliberation.

The scales tipped slightly in favor of secular-nationalist parties such as the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Golkar, the Democratic Party and the Nasdem Party.

The National Awakening Party (PKB), which is part of the government’s big-tent coalition and whose membership overlaps with that of the nation’s largest grassroots Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, also voted against continuing the bill’s deliberation process.

The other four factions of the House, comprising the Gerindra Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the United Development Party (PPP), voted to continue the discussions.

The division at the House led Supratman Andi Atgas, the head of Baleg, to say lawmakers had failed to reach a unanimous understanding on the basic concept of the bill.

“As a result, we cannot continue the deliberation process of the bill,” Supratman said during the hearing.

Without a recommendation from Baleg, the bill cannot be taken up as an initiative of the House, which is the formal process of announcing what pieces of legislation the House will table in future talks with the government.

The bill will also be excluded from the 2021 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas), the de facto priority list.

The decision came off the back of growing public criticism and concerns over privacy, which arose after the bill was introduced earlier this year. Critics argued that many of the provisions stipulated in the bill would interfere in the private lives of individuals and attempt to enforce a patriarchal approach to managing household affairs.

For example, in a copy of the draft bill that The Jakarta Post obtained, article 24 of the bill stipulated that married couples were required to love one another. Article 25 further stated that the individual roles of husband and wife must be filled in accordance with religious norms and social ethics.

Additionally, people with “sexual deviations” would also be required to report themselves to the authorities, and that a state body responsible for “family resilience” would be set up and tasked with handling “family crises due to sexual deviation”.

According to the bill, sexual deviation is defined as “sexual urges and satisfaction that are shown in uncommon and unnatural ways”. This would lump sexual sadism, masochism and homosexuality together with incest.

The bill, which was previously placed on the 2020 priority list of legislation, was initiated by four lawmakers: Netty Pasetyani and Ledia Hanifah from the PKS, Ali Taher from PAN and Sodik Mudjahid from Gerindra.

Nasdem politician Sulaeman M. Hamzah highlighted concerns that certain provisions would give the state leeway to insert itself into disputes that could otherwise only be settled internally among members of a family.

Citing the bill’s mandate to set up a state body tasked with being an arbitrator in family disputes, Sulaeman said that would amount to an intervention in people’s private lives.

Meanwhile, Golkar Party politician Nurul Arifin argued that the bill would promulgate a misleading perception about what constitutes an ideal Indonesian family.

Article 16 of the bill stated that each family member was required to follow orders and avoid any prohibitions set out by their respective religious beliefs, and that they must demonstrate good morals, among other criteria.

Nurul said that the way this provision was drafted inferred that any family that failed to comply with the criteria would be deemed less than ideal.

The PKS’ Netty remained adamant that the country needed specific regulations to shield Indonesian families from the negative effects of rapid globalization and modernization. She insisted that the legislation only intended to “homogenize” the character of Indonesian families.

“As an initiator, I am sad that five out of nine factions have rejected the bill,” she said. “But I believe that our fight to pass the bill into law won’t stop here.”

Muslim-majority Indonesia, with its multicultural but largely conservative population, often struggles to practice what it preaches, in spite of its national slogan, Unity in Diversity.

Nowhere is this more palpable than in and around urban centers, where the drive for modernization often stands in stark contrast with the traditional beliefs of a Java-centric, Islam-centric society.

But the rise of a more open generation, as well as the spread of a more moderate strand of Islam and the continued respect for constitutional safeguards, has largely prevented the nation from descending into religious and cultural polarization.

Feri Amsari, a constitutional law expert from West Sumatra’s Andalas University, complimented the House for making good strides by discontinuing the family resilience bill. He said it would be unconstitutional for the bill to be passed into law.

The 1945 Constitution guarantees and protects people’s right to privacy, which includes decisions on family and marriage. As such, the government does not and should not have any right to intervene in people’s private lives.

“The government should protect the public’s right to privacy instead of trying to control them,” he told the Post.

“The bill will only make people uncomfortable in living their lives, so I think the House has made a good move to discontinue its deliberation.”

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