Ruler’s Law: the Report of the International Commission of Jurists: Mission to Indonesia

Asia
Issue: Independence of Judges and Lawyers
Document Type: Fact Finding Mission
Date: 1999

Since its independence in 1945, the development of the Indonesian legal system has been heavily influenced by the philosophies and aspirations of the nation’s first two presidents, President Soekarno and President Soeharto.

As will clearly be demonstrated throughout this report, the power and strength of these two leaders created an environment in which Indonesia’s constitutional and legal norms have been allied closely with the authority of the Presidency and the authoritarian character of the prevailing political order. This has resulted in a situation in which neither Constitution nor law acted as constraints upon Presidential power. The abuse of that power, in turn, created the preconditions for the establishment of an absolutist State in which the rule of law, judicial independence and human rights have been frequently disregarded.

Indonesia-ruler’s law-fact finding mission-1999-eng (download full report in PDF)

 

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