Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih delivering a virtual public lecture on theories of the state and constitutional law and legislation for the Law Faculty of Gadjah Mada University, Saturday (21/08/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Ilham W. M.

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Saturday, August 21, 2021 | 19:28 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih delivered a public lecture in the classes Theory of the State and Constitutional Law and Legislation for the State Administrative Law Department of the Law Faculty of Gadjah Mada University on Saturday, August 21, 2021 virtually. She began her lecture by saying that the theory of the state was the basic science of the state and the origins of the state that was mandatory for law students and elective for others.

She explained that theories of the state included the basic concepts and principles of the state, a comparative study of existing states or those that had existed, for example the establishment and disappearance of states as well as their purposes, functions, development, forms, etc. She said it focused on the general characteristics of the state and disregarded the specific. “Theories of the state do not include the implementation of those general matters in a certain state, therefore they are theoretical,” she said.

Justice Enny said George Jellinek, a German jurist, was cruicial for the birth of the theory of the state. His thoughts in the book Allgemeine Staatslehre created a systematic theory of the state. He believed the theory of the state (Staatswissenschaft) can be categorized into the small-scope Staatswissenschaft, which focuses on the state as an object, and Rechtswissenschaft, which focuses on the legal standpoint.

Justice Enny further explained that Staatswissenschaft could be categorized into Beschreibende staatswissenschaft or statenkunde and Theoritische staatswissenschaft or Staatsleer. Beschreibende staatswissenschaft describes the state from the standpoints of its citizens, natural resources, flora and fauna. Meanwhile, Theoritische staatswissenschaft analyzes and processes materials from the Beschreibende staatswissenschaft into a system and completes it with the basic principles and the basic meaning of the state.

She added that Theoritische staatswissenschaft could be further categorized into allgemeine staatslehre, a general theory of the state on theories that apply in all states. “Jellinek discussed the theory of the state using the Two-Sides-Theory or zwei-seiten-theorie,” she said.

Constitutional Law

In her lecture on Constitutional Law and Legislation, Justice Enny explained that the word “democracy” originated from Greek demos (“people”) and kratos (“government”). Democracy means a form of government from the people, for the people, and by the people.

She said the people held the highest sovereignty in the state, so democracy and popular sovereignty were inseparable. “The popular sovereignty maintains that the people holds the highest sovereignty in the state,” she said. She added that there must be clear limits to state powers, so they must be designed with a mechanism of checks and balances.

In its development, the concept of the rule of law cannot be separated from the concept of popular sovereignty, as the law that regulates and limits state powers or the government is interpreted as the law that is created on the basis of popular sovereignty. The concept of the rule of law and popular sovereignty go hand in hand which led to the concept of a democratic rule of law.

Writer        : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 8/23/2021 13:21 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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