Moluccas International Campaign for Human Rights
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Looking for justice in Indonesia's disadvantaged regions
The Jakarta Post July 23, 2007 

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) recently launched a 2006 report on the findings of an 18-month assessment of five of the country's most marginalized regions and uncovered a prevailing lack of access to justice. The regions are North Maluku, Maluku, Southeast Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi and West Kalimantan. The UNDP's senior advisor for human rights, legal and justice sector reform, Mas Achmad Santosa, discussed the issue with The Jakarta Post's Tony Hotland and Desy Nurhayati.

What are the key findings of the research? 

We found there is low community awareness of rights, a preference to resort to informal justice mechanisms such as mediation by village heads or traditional settlements, inadequacies in legal aid and other legal services sponsored by the state and a low level of trust in the police, who are also faced with inadequate operational resources. 

What we seek is to empower people in these areas to comprehend their fundamental legal rights, to be able to defend and fight for them and create a system that eases the process of defending and fighting for these rights. 

People in disadvantaged areas view going to court as very intimidating and formal, while informal justice mechanisms often result in much fairer settlements for them. 

Does a lack of access to justice lead to poverty? 


People in these areas have no understanding of what their rights are, let alone how to exercise them. They are open to bullying by the apparatus and institutions. When that happens, how can they fight back? There's a positive correlation between poor access to justice and pauperizing. When they stay poor, access to justice suffers. 

Can the government continue to use the excuse that it has financial constraints? 

This is a matter of the flow of information. People in urban areas have better access to information than those in rural areas. The government cannot discriminate against those in disadvantaged areas by constantly using the excuse it has financial constraints. I think that's why the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) got us to tag along in projects to provide better access to justice in these areas. 

What are the projects Bappenas and the UNDP are working on? 

Projects must fortify both camps. They should strengthen the disadvantaged groups as the justice demanders and also the institutions as the justice providers. There must be a balance. 

We have a project called the Legal Empowerment and Assistance for the Disadvantaged (LEAD) program in which we try to strengthen institutions at the local level so they can push for empowering the law and promote legal aid groups and other non-governmental organizations. We help them in terms of management and even financing. We also push for the enactment of ordinances that will lead to reforms, such as an ordinance on transparency. 

Bappenas has a vision to push for reforms in law enforcement institutions through several methods, including the use of external supervisors such as the Judicial Commission. 

It seems there have been efforts to maintain the lack of justice in such areas to sustain power. Do you share this view? 

We're in a transition era coming from a time when laws were made to favor those in power. We want to reform but the culture of power is hard to kill. The government is still on a "willing" level to improve access to justice but has yet to successfully transform it into concrete actions. We have yet to see significant budgets for legal aid agencies or for introducing these people to their rights ... to have private poverty, to freedom of speech, to fair treatment. None of it is happening because there have been way too many distractions. 

But I don't believe there's a systematic effort to keep things the way they are. I've had a chance to talk with the President and other decision makers in the law enforcers' camp, and I didn't get the impression that the lack of access was intentional. But I do believe there's a problem in the management of furthering the reform agenda ... more a (lack of) managerial capacity. 

There's of course a great chance that some people may want to keep these areas lacking in access to justice, from which they can benefit. But I don't think they're the ones in key positions. 

You mentioned there have been distractions in the fight to bring justice to marginalized regions. What kind distractions? 

The President was at one point high-spirited to reform the bureaucracy, but then came consecutive natural disasters and political disturbances. To date, there are other things the government has put ahead of (providing) access to justice, such as economic issues. 

The provision of access to justice relies on the ability of the institutions to reform and reorganize themselves. Once they've restructured, society will automatically feel and see the changes through new services. So, the first and most essential factor is the reform of institutions. 


Giving even access to justice in all areas is in line with the government's own program to develop disadvantaged regions.
HIRA I NI ENTUB FO I NI, IT DID ENTUB FO IT DID. – A PERSON’S PROPERTY SHALL REMAIN THAT PERSON’S PROPERTY, OUR PROPERTY REMAINS OUR OWN.