Law of Indonesia is based on a civil law system, intermixed with customary law and the Roman Dutch law. Before the Dutch colonisation in the sixteenth century, indigenous kingdoms ruled the archipelago independently with their own custom laws, known as adat. Foreign influences from India, China and Arabia have not only affected the culture, but also weighed in the customary adat laws. Aceh in Sumatra, for instances, observes their own sharia law, while Torajaethnic group in Sulawesi are still following their animistic customary law. Dutch presence and subsequent occupation of Indonesia for 350 years has left a legacy of Dutch colonial law, largely in the Indonesia civil code. Following the independence in 1945, Indonesia began to form its own modern Indonesian law, not developing it from scratch, but modifying precepts of existing laws. Dutch legal decisions maintain some authority in Indonesia through application of the concordance principle. The three components of adat, or customary law; Dutch-Roman law; and modern Indonesian law co-exist in the current law of Indonesia.
Legal system
Indonesia legislation comes in different forms. The following official hierarchy of Indonesian legislation is enumerated in Article 7 of :
1945 Constitution
Resolutions of the People's Representative Council . The most famous of the Tap MPRs were formulated by a provisional MPR in April 1966 and were used to ban the PKI, enshrine Supersemar and legitimize the New Order
In practice, there are also Presidential Decrees, Presidential Instructions , Ministerial Regulations, Ministerial Decrees and Circulation Letters, which sometimes conflict with each other. Once legislative products are promulgated, the State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia is issued from the State Secretariat. Sometimes Elucidation accompanied some legislations in a Supplement of the State Gazette. The Government of Indonesia also produces State Reports to publish government and public notices as well as ministerial regulations and decrees.
Undang-Undang can only be established by the People's Representative Council. The executive branch can propose a bill for consideration by the DPR. During the process of considering a bill, the DPR usually creates a small task group to discuss the proposed legislation with the relevant government ministries. When agreement has been reached and the DPR has approved the bill, the President usually endorses the bill and it is promulgated as Act. However, even if the President refuses to endorse a bill approved by the DPR, the bill is automatically enacted within thirty days and is promulgated. When agreement cannot be reached within the DPR to enact a bill into law, the bill may not be proposed again during the current term of the legislature.
Problems with the system
There are still many problems with the legal system in Indonesia. Many laws and regulations conflict with each other, and because the legal system sometimes does not operate effectively, it can be difficult to resolve these conflicts. Further, the rule of law in Indonesia is often undermined by rife corruption among the nation's judiciary and law enforcers. Resources The overall legal system is badly under resourced, both in the public sector and the private sector which provides many services to clients. For example, in early 2015 it was reported that there was a severe shortage of judges which was particularly affecting the operations of district courts. It was reported that around 250 new judges were needed each year but that no new judges had been appointed for four years. At the time, Indonesia was reported to have a total of around 8,300 judges but that around an additional 1,000 judges were needed to fill the backlog. The Indonesian government and professional lawyers in Indonesia are well-aware of these problems and are working, over time, to improve the system.
