Democracy these days is like an empty shell. It looks good from the outside but inside, it's devoid of content.
By
BIVITRI SUSANTI
·4 minutes read
DOKUMENTASI PRIBADI BIVITRI SUSANTI
Bivitri Susanti
“Development, Yes; Human Rights and the Environment, No”. This adaptation of a New Order slogan seems appropriate to describe the current condition. The slogan "Development, Yes. Politics, No” was used during the Soeharto era to keep people away from politics. Today, it is not politics that is the problem, because it is understood to be part of the democratic process.
Democracy these days is like an empty shell. It looks good from the outside but inside, it's devoid of content. The values of substantive democracy are not applied in the package of the general elections and ceremonial democratic institutions. Decision-making in the House of Representatives (DPR) is very far from substantive democracy, for example, because what counts are only the general views of factions that are controlled by the party elite. Individual House members are needed only to fill the quota, while the political decisions are in the hands of the political elite.
There is almost no substantive battle of ideas in the House except for matters of morality, such as in cases dealing with sexual violence and alcohol. Practically, government proposals (on legislation) will always be passed because those factions with opinions that are different from the government are growing fewer and fewer.
With the development approach also, the legal politics of the country are being affected. In the pursuit of economic growth, human rights and the environment have been ignored in various laws, such as the Job Creation Law. In legal politics, this approach is called “law and development”. The formation of laws, regulations and law enforcement are seen only as tools for development. The problem is, the word “development” here does not mean economic prosperity and justice, but economic growth and infrastructure development. In fact, we should be asking: Who will enjoy the economic growth if it increases?
Data from Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Databook 2019 showed that the richest 1 percent of the Indonesian population controlled 44.6 percent of the nation’s wealth, and the richest 10 percent of the population controlled 74.1 percent of the nation’s wealth. This picture of unequal welfare occurs in many countries, but efforts are always made to try and narrow this gap by looking at the people's lives and the environment. Likewise, infrastructure development should not be seen as a goal, but a means of improving the welfare of citizens.
When legal politics is aimed at development, all legal resources are mobilized to maintain the development continuity in any way, including by violating human rights and even the principles of law.
The legislative process for the Mineral and Coal Mining (Minerba) Law, for example, ignored the procedure for establishing good laws and regulations as well as political propriety by speeding up the deliberative process. In fact, this law benefits the richest 1 percent. Likewise, because it was considered to interfere with the oligarchy’s self-enrichment through political corruption and natural resources, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) was weakened by revising the law on its establishment.
The law enforcement system and apparatuses also function for development purposes. If an infrastructure project requires land, law enforcement officers will be deployed to carry out inhumane evictions. In fact, Pancasila offers an alternative process for land acquisition called musyawarah (consensual deliberation), but the quick and cheap method of violence is preferred.
Criticisms that development ignores human rights and the environment are also silenced through law and law enforcement under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law. In fact, when the judiciary is needed to uphold its role of checks and balances, the Constitutional Court has never granted a review of the legislative process, although the public can see how inappropriate the “empty shell” political process has been in the KPK Law and Minerba Law revisions.
Given this development paradigm, the “empty shell” approach has affected not only democracy, but also the rule of law. Not surprisingly, what is put forward is the jargonistic phrase “supremacy of law”, because legal coercion is indeed effective and efficient for development. In fact, laws that are unfair and oppressive are not deserving of being regarded as “supreme”.
BIVITRI SUSANTI, Lecturer at Jentera Indonesian Law School
