Constitutional Law Should Provide Room for Innovation: President Jokowi

President Jokowi, accompanied by Minister of Law and Human Rights, Cabinet Secretary, and Mahfud MD, beats a traditional instrument tifa during the opening of the 6th Conference of Constitutional Law at the State Palace, Jakarta, Monday (2/9). Photo by: Agung/PR.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has asked the Association of Lecturers of Constitutional Law and Administrative Law (APHTN-HAN) to response to the rapidly-changing world.

“Maybe it is not only related to the presidential system, but it is also related to the framework of constitutional law and administrative law as a whole,” the President said in his remarks at the Opening of the 6th Conference of Constitutional Law at the State Palace, Jakarta, Monday (2/9).

According to the President, the system of constitutional law and administrative law must create breakthrough and encourage leaps of progress. He added that sometimes laws and regulations can hamper innovations.

The President stressed that the world is rapidly changing and the regulation often cannot catch up with the latest development. He added that in Osaka, during the G20 meeting, no one can give an explanation about the law for digital taxation.

President Jokowi went on to say that changes must be responded to and the world is not merely changing very fast but is also being disrupted. In this era of disruption, the establishment can immediately collapse and the impossibility can occur.

“This is what we need to respond to and our laws, including constitutional law, must be responsive, and must be flexible to these changes. Our constitutional law must create breakthrough and encourage leaps of progress,” he said.

The President added that all parties need constitutional law that provides space for agile flexibility so that the nation could be responsive to the changes of the current era.

The President called on the participants of the 6th Constitutional Law Conference of 2019 to see whether the existing constitutional law system and the administrative law system have provided such flexibility.

“What I feel in the past 5 years, they have not (provided the flexibility),” President Jokowi said, adding that the relations among institutions have not provided room for speedy innovations.

He also reminded the participants that the founding fathers chose a presidential system for the Republic to make to make the Government more flexible.

For the record, the 6th Constitutional Law Conference was attended by 250 participants from Aceh to Papua, from the northernmost Sulawesi to the southernmost Nusa Tenggara. (FID/AGG/ES)

Translated by: Ridwan Ibadurrohman
Edited by: Mia Medyana