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What’s a democracy sans credible rule of law?

Justice, including law enforcement, has been the weakest link among the main democratic elements since Indonesia began political reforms in 1998. 

Endy Bayuni (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, October 16, 2021

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What’s a democracy sans credible rule of law?

I

f you are looking for an example of a democracy with a weak rule of law, look no further than Indonesia, the country that often prides itself as the third largest democracy in the world and the largest democracy among Muslim-majority nations.

Indonesia has held five relatively peaceful free, fair and democratic elections in the last 23 years, and it has seen regular changes in government, suggesting that it has a functioning electoral democracy. But when it comes to the question of rule of law, we suck at it, to put it mildly.

This is clear from the latest World Justice Project (WJP) report, published on Thursday, which indexes and ranks nations in terms of their rule of law performance. Indonesia, according to the report, ranks 9th out of 15 countries surveyed in the East Asia Pacific region.

It is not exactly comforting to see that the Philippines and Thailand, two nations that became democratic earlier than Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s after long years of authoritarian rule, rank lower, with one going back to a junta rule and the other to authoritarianism.

Indonesia’s democracy is not far from meeting the same fate as its two neighbors, at least going by the scoring and ranking from the WJP. Indonesia’s overall score is 0.52, where 0 is poorest and 1 is a perfect score. Thailand scored 0.50 and the Philippines 0.46.

Ranking behind Indonesia are Vietnam, China, Myanmar and Cambodia. Among Indonesia’s Southeast Asian neighbors, only Malaysia and Singapore perform better. These rankings raise serious questions about the democratic commitments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as enshrined in its charter, if members perform poorly in the rule of law index.

Globally, Indonesia ranks 68th out of the 139 countries surveyed, dropping two places in the past year, according to the WJP which publishes the annual report. The fact that we are not even in the top half puts our claims of democracy to shame.

It is back to the drawing board as far as our democracy project is concerned, and rule of law is one area that desperately needs fixing.

The report says there has been a deterioration in the rule of law worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some 6.5 billion people, or nearly 85 percent of the world’s population, live in a country where rule of law has been weakening over the past year.

“With negative trends in so many countries, this year’s WJP Rule of Law Index should be a wake-up call for us all,” said WJP cofounder and CEO Bill Neukom. “Rule of Law is the very foundation of communities of justice, opportunity and peace. Reinforcing that foundation should be a top priority for the coming period of recovery from the pandemic,” he added. 

Indeed.

Justice, including law enforcement, has been the weakest link among the main democratic elements since Indonesia began political reforms in 1998 after president Soeharto’s authoritarian rule ended.

The nation has reformed the political institutions that have since held five democratic elections, scaled back military involvement in politics and guaranteed much greater freedom for its people. But when it comes to rule of law, as the WJP report confirmed, Indonesia is failing miserably.

Our law enforcement agencies and law administrators have let the nation down. This has weakened the quality of life for many people. The near absence of credible law enforcement makes a mockery of the various freedoms guaranteed by the constitution and the law, including the freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Corruption, the hallmark of Soeharto’s rule, has also become rampant in recent years with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) virtually defanged, and jail convictions of big-time corruptors becoming rare.

The WJP breaks what constitutes the rule of law down into eight components to help point the areas in need of major improvement.

Indonesia performed relatively better when it came to constraints on government powers, regulatory enforcement and open government. It performed poorly on fundamental rights, order and security, criminal justice, reining in corruption and upholding civil justice.

To the question of what becomes of a democracy without a credible rule of law, the short answer is anarchy. We are not there yet, but we soon will be unless we tackle these problems. Or, as has happened with our neighbors, we could revert back to an authoritarian rule.

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The writer is senior editor of The Jakarta Post

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