Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat showing two texts he prepared for a presentation at the National Law Conference 2023, Wednesday (10/25/2023). Photo by MKRI/Ilham W. M.

---

JAKARTA (MKRI) — Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat highlighted the lack of development of legal culture that embodies the local values of the nation at the National Law Conference 2023 organized by the National Law Development Agency (BPHN) and the Ministry of Law and Human Rights on Wednesday, October 25, 2023 in Jakarta.

He called Indonesia a religious welfare state, where the law should be founded on Pancasila characters. “However, at present, law has been commoditized and resulting in problems due to our lack of common awareness, and the practices of law are currently not based on the divine light,” he said.

He also expressed concern for the development of the nation’s characters, which was intended by first President Soekarno in the early days of independence but did not materialize even at the end of his administration. This is also the failure of higher legal education and academics who teach more western theories rather than building legal theories with Pancasila characters.

Justice Arief also said that due to the lack of clarity in the separation of state powers, Indonesia is currently not doing well because the constitutional system is far from the ideals mandated in the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution. He believes only a small number of people is controlling the legislatures, the executive, the judiciary, and mass media, which he said never happened even in the Soekarno, Soeharto, and Yudhoyono eras.

He also expressed his concern that there could be efforts to replace the state ideology, because there had been many infiltrations by parties that are trying to undermine Pancasila. “It is not only left-wing ideologies, but also right-wing ideologies that impose religious beliefs and even hedonistic ideologies,” he said.

Meanwhile, in his keynote speech, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Mohammad Mahfud MD mentioned that the current problem is law enforcement and bureaucracy. However, many law enforcement officers still do well on their jobs. He emphasized that if we want to improve the law, there must be a shared understanding in law enforcement.

Author       : Ilham W. M.
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator  : Najwa Afifah Lukman/Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

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.

---