JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The level of public trust in the government institutions that were born in the Reform era out of an urgency to strengthen control mechanisms on power is believed to be on the decline. As Indonesia approached the 25th anniversary of the Reform movement, concerns have arisen about the need for a comprehensive evaluation to strengthen the functions of those institutions.
Those institutions founded to help achieve Reform’s aspirations include the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), Constitutional Court (MK) and Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The DPD was introduced in 2001, while the MK and KPK were formed in 2003.
Based on the Kompas Research and Development survey conducted from 2015 to January 2023, public faith in the DPD, MK and KPK has generally declined. Several experts asked about the performance of those three institutions have further affirmed the weakening trend with them providing critical notes for improvement.
Former MK chief justice Jimly Asshiddiqie said on Friday (24/3/2023) that those government institutions’ effectiveness had to be evaluated. Citing Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s views Why Nations Fail, he pointed out that political, social and economic institutions should be effective, not extractive.
An institution being extractive means it only utilizes resources for itself with relatively no benefit to the people. ”This applies to all institutions. So, I suggest to all political parties that after 25 years of reform, an evaluation needs to be implemented. There has to be a realignment of the state governance system," he said.
Structurally, institutionally and politically motivated interests often intervene and interfere with independence.
Hamdan Zoelva, another former MK chief justice, who appeared to be of the same opinion as Jimly, said an evaluation would call for a review either of the 1945 Constitution and laws, or their implementation.
"Structurally, institutionally and politically motivated interests often intervene and interfere with independence. As a result, they deviate from the spirit of reform,” Hamdan said.
Subversion
Kemitraan (partnership) executive director Laode M Syarif, who is also a former KPK deputy chairman (2015-2019), said the subversion of Reform era institutions, such as the KPK and MK, which were designed from the onset to restrain power from arbitrary and corrupt governance, was an affront to the ideals of reform and democracy.
The policies that have weakened the KPK, according to some elements of civil society, include the revision of the KPK Law and the implementation of nationalist competency tests for KPK employees with a number of them being declared ineligible, having failed the test. A step seen as weakening the MK was, among others, the removal of Aswanto by the House of Representatives from his post as deputy chief justice. This is regarded as a form of interference in the MK.
"The government and House may have viewed the KPK and MK as being too restrictive so they moved to weaken the KPK and MK. In fact, these two institutions were widely used as references by the global community," Laode said.
Hamdan said the law-enforcing institutions introduced during the Reform era, especially those related to corruption eradication, had yet to optimize their performance, with corruption remaining rampant and the Corruption Perception Index not showing significant improvement.
The KPK Law was ratified in 2002 with high hopes that the culture of corruption would gradually wear down within the following 20 years, in line with the ideals of reform, namely freeing Indonesia from corruption. However, Hamdan said these hopes did not materialize because the KPK had forgotten its main functions of supervision and coordination.
Yance Arizona, a lecturer in constitutional law at Gadjah Mada University, said the MK’s unpopular decisions these days had made democracy uncompetitive. The decisions were suspected of subverting the supervisory institution and appeared to serve specific interests.
He hoped the next government would not get itself into a “debt of gratitude” so that law implementation could be more impartial and independent.
He referred to the amendment to the 2020 Constitutional Court Law, which removed the term period for judges from five years to a maximum of 15 years, or when a justice reaches 70 years old, as a step that smacked of partiality.
Meanwhile, the DPD, which was expected to become a legislative control, has not functioned properly with Jimly attributing this to institutional design problems. Himself a member of the DPD, he felt the DPD was the result of a compromise not having been worked out thoroughly as a state concept.
Jimly said the DPD’s position would have to be strengthened in the face of the House, which was expected to resist any efforts seen as infringing its power. Otherwise, he said, the DPD would be left looking busy, but not something decisive in state governance.
DPD chairman La Nyalla Mattalitti acknowledged that the DPD had not been optimal in carrying out its functions and role as an aggregator of regional interests, as well as a checks-and-balances mechanism in the legislature, especially over the House. He blamed this on institutional laws being discriminatory toward the House.
KPK, MK responses
While applauding the criticism as part of an evaluation to improve performance, KPK deputy chairman Nurul Ghufron rejected the suggestion of subversion of norms or law. He said it was a matter of the KPK’s current performance needing to adapt itself to the challenges from technological developments. He said the modes and technologies used by corruption suspects were increasingly sophisticated.
Meanwhile, MK spokesperson Enny Nurbaningsih said any assessment of the MK’s performance should be comprehensive, covering both judicial and non-judicial aspects. From a non-judicial perspective, she said, efforts continued to be made at improvement, as proven in the judicial function with the MK's decisions being more popular. Some of these decisions had even turned out to be hailed by outsiders as landmark decisions, she said.
"Regarding the implementation of the judicial function, I guarantee that until now the Constitutional Court is still able to maintain its independence," she said.