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Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra delivering an online public lecture to freshmen of the Postgraduate Program of Andalas University’s Law Faculty on Saturday (12/9).

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra delivered an online public lecture to freshmen of the Postgraduate Program of Andalas University’s Law Faculty on Saturday, September 12, 2020. The lecture took the theme “75 Years of Indonesia’s Law-Based State,” which was published in a renowned national media.

"Why is this important? Because to this day, people are still debating the direction of the Indonesian law-based state. What makes it different from other rules of law? I traced its development in 75 years and took a look of its judicial powers," he said. His lecture was on the methods to establishing the ideal judicial powers.

He said that there was no debate over Indonesia’s law-based state when the founders were formulating the 1945 Constitution. What they debated over was the foundational philosophical theory, the form of the state—whether a republic or a monarchy.

“Why didn’t [they] choose [to found] a kingdom or a monarchy? In fact, historically, socio-culturally, we were monarchies. We had large and small kingdoms in the archipelago. If [they’d] thought linearly, we should be like Thailand or Malaysia, which became kingdoms. However, the nation’s founders did not choose the monarchy model because there were many kingdoms in Indonesia, so who would have been anointed king? The founders had objections [to the monarchy model], so a voting was held. More than 90 percent chose a republic," Justice Saldi said.

He explained that the term “law-based state” (negara hukum) had only surfaced in the draft of the 1945 Constitution following Soepomo’s view that Indonesia must be a state of law (rechtsstaat), not only of power. However, nobody asked him which law-based state—was it tied to the European concept or the Anglo-American one? “However, when discussing state agencies—the Supreme Court, the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly), the DPR (the House)—they debated a lot,” he added.

Justice Saldi further explained the difference between the rule of law and rechtsstaat. Rechtsstaat came about radically as an opposition to the tyrannical ruling power and relied on written laws more than on judges’ rulings, lending to the emergence of the administrative court.

He added that after Soepomo talked about the law-based state, it was never debated and wasn’t included in the constitution. “Take a look at the pre-amendment 1945 Constitution. It didn’t talk about law-based state. It was only mentioned in the elucidation to the Constitution, which was not the part endorsed by the Preparatory Committee for Indonesian Independence as the initial constitution. The elucidation only came about when Soepomo was appointed the minister of justice,” he said.

However, although rechtsstaat wasn’t included in the pre-amendment 1945 Constitution, the characteristics of a law-based state surfaced in the old 1945 Constitution, for example the independent judicial powers. It also mentioned human rights guarantee, albeit limited. “In the Constitution of the RIS [Republic of the United States of Indonesia] of 1949, law-based state was mentioned. As well as in the Provisional Constitution of 1950,” he said. Article 1 paragraph (3) of the amended 1945 Constitution states that Indonesia is a law-based state.

Independent Learning

Justice Saldi said that some undergraduates exceed postgraduates in terms of knowledge because they read more literature and because postgraduates students have more independence in learning. He added that it comes to each postgraduate student to extend their knowledge as the postgraduate program offers adult learning, where students are expected to study on their own. “Don’t think of enrolling in a postgraduate of law, be it a master’s in law or notary, only as a stepping stone for the next job,” he said.

He said that to stay above undergraduate students, postgraduate students must read a lot, improve their public speaking and writing skills. He put an emphasis on the writing skills. “One of the keys to seeing progress is finding out if we have advanced in our writing skills [when] writing a thesis or a journal paper is not longer a challenge. Don’t write a piece that only comprehensible for a select few. When that happens, we’ve failed to communicate with the general public, when we’re actually writing not for ourselves but for others,” he said.

Writer: Nano Tresna Arfana
Editor: Lulu Anjarsari
Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 9/14/2020 10:03 WIB

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian version, the Indonesian version will prevail.

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