Setara Institute Urges Jokowi Form National Legislation Center

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Human rights advocacy group Setara Institute urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to establish a national legislation center following many findings of regional regulation and legal products that promote intolerance.

In a survey held from September 2018 until February 2019, Setara found many regional regulations promoting intolerance passed by provincial, regency, or city administration.

“This research proves that the existence of discriminatory regional regulation is a violation against human rights and demands state’s holistic attitude,” said the group’s executive director, Ismail Hasani, in a written statement, Tuesday, August 13.

Setara assessed the planned formation of national legislation center as announced by the President is the best opportunity to respond to the discriminatory legal product existing in the region, that can be followed-up by the issuance of the recommendation of political review for the region. So it will not violate the Constitutional Court’s ruling No. 137/PUU-XII1/2015 and No. 56/PUU-XIV/2016.

The center can also take a role in running integrated, sustainable monitoring on the bylaw or regional draft regulations and other regional legal products.

However, Ismail added that the center formation required reconciliation between the Home Affairs Ministry and Legal and Human Rights Ministry to cut off both sectoral ego in handling regional legal products.

In the study, Setara Institute used data from the National Commission of Anti-Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) in 2016 that spotted as many as 421 discriminatory regional regulations and internal data in 2017 that revealed 71 regional legal products that accelerated practices of intolerance, discrimination, and violence.

“This research shows how a regional legal product in any form creates a discriminatory impact, either direct or indirect,” Ismail concluded.

FIKRI ARIGI