Constitutional Court’s Secretary-General giving remarks at the book review of “Modern Bureaucracy; Nature, Theory, and Practice” at the Law Faculty of Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Friday (8/5/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Panji.

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Friday, August 5, 2022 | 22:35 WIB

JAKARTA—Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court (MK) M. Guntur Hamzah gave his remarks at the review of the book Birokrasi Modern; Hakikat, Teori dan Praktik (“Modern Bureaucracy; Nature, Theory, and Practice”) by himself and Ria Mardiana Yusuf. The event was collaboration between the Court and the Law Faculty of Hasanuddin University (FH Unhas), Makassar, South Sulawesi on Friday, August 5, 2022 at the Doctoral Promotion Room of FH Unhas.

Attending the event onsite, Guntur said without good bureaucracy or human resources, an organization would be stuck in discussion without follow-up.

“Therefore, development of adaptive human resources is needed,” he said before discussants and participants who attended the event onsite and virtually.

In the book, Guntur describes modern bureaucracy as a state administration or organization based on ICT2 (information, communication, and technology/integrity, cleanliness, and trustworthiness). He also believes it should meet the Metacord principle: meritocracy, empowerment, transparency, adaptability, collaboration, obedience, responsiveness, and digitization. Such bureaucracy, he argues, is not bound by distance and time.

Guntur said, the essence of the book is the way to build institution and human resources: solid bureaucratic leadership. “The bureaucracy must be strong, the leadership must be solid,” he said.

In this modern bureaucratic era, we cannot deny digital transformation that the President of the Republic of Indonesia had outlined in improving public services in accordance with the principles of good governance, Guntur emphasized. Good governance, in turn, requires transparency and accountability.

“This book is a collaboration between practitioners in bureaucracy and management law. We dedicated this book, hopefully this book is easy to read and understand,” Guntur said. 

Bureaucratic Issues

In the book review session, two discussants were present—Erwan Agus Purwanto (Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry’s Deputy for Bureaucratic Reform Policy Formulation, Apparatus Accountability, and Supervision) and Ahmad Ruslan (law professor of Unhas).

Erwan, who attended online, said the first part of the book discusses the nature of modern bureaucracy, why the government through bureaucracy needs to intervene in public affairs, and the characteristics of bureaucracy in carrying out its role.

He also said the problems faced by bureaucracy so far, including corruption, were discussed. There was a question: why bureaucracy initiated by Max Weber with the principle of rationality actually created space for corruption? Is modern bureaucracy able to eliminate corruption?

Erwan also explained it was implicitly said in the book that the adoption of modern technology (especially ICT) is expected to be able to solve the problem of corruption faced by bureaucracy. To prove this, in the second part, the book describes the modern bureaucratic practices in the Constitutional Court.

“In the third part of this book, in chapters 4 and 5, the authors explain modern bureaucratic practices in the Constitutional Court. There are many descriptions in chapter 4 on modernizing bureaucracy using various applications to provide public services. The third part is the reflection and comparison of modern bureaucratic practices in various countries,” he explained.

Erwan said modern bureaucracy was always presented with methodological challenges because when on claims something, one is confronted with something ancient or traditional or conventional.

“Methodologically it will certainly cause debate,” he added.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Ruslan said the book explains the development of bureaucracy. The key to modern in this book is not only ICT but also the staff or human resources behind it.

He said this book serves to provide materials to identify, understand, and change the mindset and patterns of the apparatus. The seven chapters the book was complete, he said, starting with the values ​​of service that humanizes humans.

“This book is a useful reading material. I am very happy if it is made mandatory for undergraduates, graduates, and others in administrative law,” he said. 

Writer        : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Nur R.
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 8/8/2022 09:10 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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