Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra speaking virtually at the Legal Education, Ethics and Professionalism (LEAP) seminar by the Law Faculty of Universitas Airlangga and the Law Faculty of Maastricht University, Tuesday (1/18/2022) at the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ilham W.M.

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Tuesday, January 18, 2022 | 12:47 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—There is a disparity between the legal education curriculum and the legal needs in society. For this reason, it is necessary to make adjustments, both in the legal curriculum and practices by law graduates, so that the results of higher legal education can be at the forefront of maintaining a law-based state in accordance with legal developments in society.

This was said by Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra at a seminar on legal education and the launch of the results of Legal Education, Ethics and Professionalism (LEAP) program in the Orange Knowledge Program (OKP) scheme, organized by the Law Faculty of Universitas Airlangga (FH UNAIR) and the Law Faculty of Maastricht University on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 both online and onsite from the Pancasila Hall of FH UNAIR. At the event on “Teaching Rule of Law in Legal Education,” Justice Saldi talked about “Legal Education for the Rule of Law” in the first session. The event also marked the launch of the legal education network of FH UNAIR and the Law Faculty of Maastricht University.

Justice Saldi believes serious issues in Indonesian legal education can be seen from the lack of connection between the theories studied in university and the legal needs in society. This, he said, happens because there is a gap between the materials studied in higher education and the legal needs in society. Moreover, legal needs change quickly, while the existing curriculum change slowly. As a result, the results of higher legal education require a long process to overcome legal issues in the field. 

“It is as if since back then until now students have only been provided with theories from legal textbooks, but there has been no effort to force students to follow legal developments that occur in court decisions, both in the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. Our curriculum completely ignores the need to follow court decisions, even though this is important for students because when students’ basic knowledge is [compared to] court decisions, they will be confused. So from here there is a new need for balancing theoretical knowledge with new knowledge obtained from court decisions,” he said.

Responding to this issue of Indonesian legal education, Justice Saldi invites stakeholders to adopt a perspective of looking at legal needs by balancing the theory in the books, the practices in the field, as well as court decisions. For this reason, the communities of law faculties in Indonesia must be forced to follow and read court decisions that have been categorized as jurisprudence. This, he said, can be a way to design future legal education curricula. Thus, teaching law can be done by balancing theoretical needs and practices in the legal world in the curriculum. This will also cover practical knowledge that society needs.

This event was held as a space to examine the contemporary challenges of legal education, in terms of curriculum, learning methods, and the relevance of legal education, as well as to examine the contemporary challenges of legal education in terms of equitable distribution of the quality of legal education in Indonesia. Nurul Barizah, a lecturer at FH UNAIR also delivered a presentation on “Women: Roles and Challenges for the Contribution to the Rule of Law.”

Writer        : Sri Pujianti
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 01/18/2022 15:07 WIB

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

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