Civic Participation in E-Legislation Portal (ID0097)

January 2019 - December 2020
Commitment Description
Lead implementing
agency/actor
Ministry of Home Affairs
Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 12/2011
article 96 act 1 on the Establishment of Legislation
mentions that “people have right to provide input orally
and/or written in the Establishment on Legislation” in
which Local Regulation in Provinces and Districts are
included in the legislation hierarchy. It is stated that
people have the right to participate in the process of
developing the regulation as the requirement of the
democratic policy. However, there are still some
factors that obstruct people’s opportunity to participate
in forming local regulation. The main factors are lack
of access to the process and minimum facility
available. Breakthrough is needed to empower
people’s role in the development of local regulation.
What is the public problem that
the commitment will address?
The commitment of E-Legislation portal is not a new
innovation because it is already implemented in
Semarang and Makassar. For replicating reason, the
purpose of this commitment is to accelerate the use of
E-Legislation in other regions. The portal contains
legislative programs, drafts of the new regulation,
discussion agendas, minutes of the meeting and online
public consultation menu.
What is the commitment?
The openness of the law-making process through
E-Legislation portal will benefit the society’s needs in
so many levels, such as the information of the process
of developing the regulation, the Regional House of
Representative activities, and online public
consultation menu. Moreover, this platform will be
user-friendly designed.
How will the commitment
contribute to solve the public
problem?
The commitment is aligned with some of Open
Government Partnership (OGP) values which are civic
participation and transparency.
Why is this commitment relevant
to OGP values?
25 Indonesia Open Government Partnership National Action Plan 2018-2020
On this commitment, the Ministry of Home Affairs
has to issue circular letters to the Secretariat of the
Regional House of Representative. In parallel, the
ministry will develop the E-Legislation platform in the
regions. This platform will provide the bill documents,
comment box and the issuance of regulation in the
regional level. ● Civic participation is related to the openness in the
decision-making process involving people
extensively from various background. In this case,
by providing an E-Legislation platform to uphold
democratic space in the local regulation
making-process, the government has manifested
the value of civic participation.
● Transparency is related to the quality of public
information and people access the information.
This value is manifested in the e-Legislation which
enable people to access the proposed regional
regulation.
The commitment is also aligned with achievement
effort of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
number 16: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies
for sustainable development, provide access to justice
for all and effective, accountable and inclusive
institution at all levels”, especially on target 16.7:
“Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory, and
representative decision-making at all levels”.
Participatory decision-making process up to the
regional level can create an inclusive and peaceful
society for sustainable development in Indonesia.
Additional information
Milestone Activity with a verifiable
deliverable
Start Date: End Date:
1. the availability of Ministry of
Home Affairs’ circular letters to the
Secretariat of Regional House of
Representative regarding
participation on legislative process
through E-Legislation portal
January 2019 July 2019
2. The availability of E-Legislation
platform on Regional House of
Representative’s website in 5
regions.
January 2019 December 2020
Contact information
Other Actors
Involved
State actors
involved
1. Ministry of Communication and Informatics
2. Central Information Commission
CSOs, private
sector, multilaterals,
working groups
Indonesian Parliamentary Center (IPC)

6. The Enhancement of Civic Participation in the Process of Developing Local Legislation through E-Legislation Portal

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

The commitment of E-Legislation portal is not a new innovation because it is already implemented in Semarang and Makassar. For replicating reason, the purpose of this commitment is to accelerate the use of E-Legislation in other regions. The portal contains legislative programs, drafts of the new regulation, discussion agendas, minutes of the meeting, and online public consultation menu.

On this commitment, the Ministry of Home Affairs has to issue circular letters to the Secretariat of the Regional House of Representative. In parallel, the Ministry will develop the E-Legislation platform in the regions. This platform will provide the bill documents, comment box and the issuance of regulation in the regional level.

Milestones:

1. The availability of Ministry of Home Affairs’ circular letters to the Secretariat of Regional House of Representative regarding participation on legislative process through E-Legislation portal.
2. The availability of E-Legislation platform on Regional House of Representative’s website in 5 regions.

Start Date: January 2019                                                               End Date: December 2020

Context and Objectives

This commitment follows the successful implementation ^[81] of a similar commitment from the City of Semarang in the previous action plan. Through this commitment, the Ministry of Home Affairs will develop an e-legislation portal to increase citizen participation in the legislative process as well as access to legislation information.

The House of Representatives (DPR) performs the legislative function at the national level, and the Local Peoples Representative Councils (DPRD) has a similar function at the local level. DPRD members can draft local regulations (Perda) with their government counterparts at the provincial, city, and regency levels independent of the DPR, as long as they do not contradict regulations existing laws that take precedent.

In fulfilling its legislative function, every Local Peoples Representative Council must abide by Law No. 12/2011 on the Formulation of Regulatory Legislation. ^[82] Article 96 of this law explicitly requires public participation in forming legislation through a general hearing, direct visits to constituencies, socialization activities to disseminate information on how citizens can participate in local legislation process, and/or a seminar to gain feedback from citizens. ^[83] To optimize public participation, the law mandates that every draft law formed by Local Peoples Representative Councils be easily accessible by the public. ^[84]

Despite this law, there are no clear mechanisms across local governments that regulate local public participation. ^[85] Additionally, a lack of regulation and standards in data governance contribute to low availability of legislation data. This effectively limits the ability of citizens to hold their local representatives accountable during the legislative process. To improve this situation, the government aims to develop e-legislation portals in five regions as part of a pilot project with an emphasis on making legislative process information easily accessible online. The Ministry of Home Affairs will determine which five regions will participate in the project during the implementation stage.

The government’s focus in this commitment is to ensure compliance with Law No. 12/2011 across the five Local Peoples Representative Councils selected for the pilot project. To do so, the Ministry of Home Affairs will ensure the development of publicly accessible e-legislation portals  with a standardized menu configuration. The Ministry of Home Affairs already has an internal system named e-Perda where all Local Peoples Representative Councils across the nation regularly report their legislation activities and documents. However, this e-Perda platform is only accessible by government officials for monitoring and evaluation purposes. Through the e-legislation platform in this commitment, the Ministry aims to open up public access to legislation information while still maintaining the e-Perda platform for internal coordination between the central and local governments.

With proper implementation, this commitment has moderate potential to change the legislation process at the local level as an unclear mechanism for public participation continues to be a barrier in ensuring a truly participatory legislation process. The design of this commitment does not specify the extent of how public participation would influence legislation process. It is also difficult to determine the full extent of this commitment’s ambition as the government has yet to decide the locations of the five pilot projects.

Next Steps

In implementing this commitment, the government should focus on the following steps to support the development of the e-legislation portal:

• Give citizens access to information throughout legislation process from early planning to finalization through the e-legislation portal to facilitate informed participation;
• Establish a clear mechanism that institutionalizes public consultation as an element in local legislation; and
• Develop a strategy to raise public awareness of the opportunities to participate and influence local legislation by ensuring easy access to comprehensive information.

[81] Open Government Partnership, “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Indonesia End-of-Term Report 2016–2017” (2019), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Indonesia_End-of-Term_Report_2016-2017_EN.pdf.

[82] Government of Indonesia, “Undang-Undang No. 12/2011 tentang Pembentukan Peraturan Perundang-Undangan” (2011), https://kelembagaan.ristekdikti.go.id/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/UU-12-Tahun-2011.pdf.

[83] Ibid.

[84] Ibid.

[85] Ahmad Hanafi (Indonesian Parliamentary Center), interview by IRM researcher, 8 Mar. 2019.