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Any new news on land reform plan?

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Responding to a Jakarta Post Article on Government's Land Reform Plan, Sarapan Ekonomi raises a question on his post:
Many questions remain unanswered, however. How will the government do it? Whose land the government is going to distribute to farmers? Will the government confiscate land from its current owners?

If a government want to get a land, it can either (i) expropriate it from its owner or (ii) distribute state-owned lands. Expropriation must be conducted indiscriminately through legislation and it must come with a proper compensation to its owner, otherwise, it is a violation of the human rights to property. Thus, if this measure is to be taken, there has to be House of Representative enacted law governing specificaly on this matter. The second possibility is through the distribution of state-owned lands under expiring land titles. We know that Indonesia has established various land titles that can be used by companies namely Right of Use/Hak Pakai (usually it is only given to foreign representative ports or big projects), Right to Exploit/Hak Guna Usaha (usually granted to plantations, etc). Since these rights are valid between 25-35 years (unless extended), then the Govt can only distribute those granted after 1972.

A good summary of Indonesian Real Property Law and its various land titles is available here.

 

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Update on search engine

I have just updated this blog's search engine (located on the search box on the right panel of this blog) so as to include 207 (two hundred and seven) links or approximately more than 180 (one hundred and eighty) governmental institutions ranging from the people's consultative assembly (MPR), house or representative (DPR), judicial institutions such as the constitutional court and the supreme court, ministries, non departemental agencies, sub departemental agencies and directorate generals, as well as non governmental organisations, private parties and Indonesian law blogs.

The regulations indexed includes, among other, 1945 Constitution and its amendments (UUD 1945), Laws / Parliament's Act (Undang-Undang), Government Regulations in lieu of Law (Perpu), followed by Implementing Regulations that consists of Government Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah), Presidential Regulation (Perpres) and Regional Regulation (Perd). It also crawls several ministries and therefore includes sectoral regulations such as Ministerial Decision (Keputusan Menter) and Ministerial Regulation (Peraturan Menteri). As the engine also crawls judicial bodies, it also include Constitutional Court's Decision (Keputusan Mahkamah Konstitusi) and some decisions of the Supreme Court. You can also find investment regulations, banking regulations and capital market regulations in the search result's as it also crawls the National Investment Coordinating Agency (BKPM), Bank Indonesia (Indonesian Central Bank), Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam), as well as Jakarta and Surabaya Stock Exchanges (JSX and SSX). Too bad, not all of them in English.

Law information should be free and easy to find!! ;)

 

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E-procurement website launched

For those interested in supplying goods and services to the government without the need of disbursing "extra-cost", try signing up at the govt's e-procurement website. The website is prepared for 2007 goods supply.

e-procurement was sought after leaks and markups was found. In year 2006 alone, around 10 and 50 percent of the state procurement budget had been misappropriated.

The legal basis for the e-procurement is a Presidential Decree issued in 2003 (downloadable here and attachment here, in bahasa).

As I clicked the wesbite however, it only says: "sorry, no packages are opened for auction, yet". Try it yourself here.

 

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Special Court for the Environment?

Friday, January 5, 2007

Another Court? Well, Walhi activists deems it necessary:

"It's about time the government considers setting up such a court to ensure those responsible for illegal logging do not always escape justice." Chalid believed judges and prosecutors tended to try illegal logging offenses as "ordinary" crimes and gave perpetrators light penalties or acquitted them.

Sounds like a classic Juridification problem to me. If an institution is not functioning properly, set up another institution in addition to the former. If the the new institution doesn't work, set up another institution to supervise the ailing institution. If the supervising institution cannot properly supervise the supervisee, set up another institution as an oversight body. Consider the corruption, how many institutions do we have? We have the BPK, KPKPN, BPKP, inspectorate general in many state organisations, we have the police, we have of course the beloved KPK, we have the courts (there are two, in fact, state court and corruption court and each may have competence to try the case) and we have the state attorneys. Still, corruption is a problem.

Maybe the Walhi activist have another consideration in their mind. But instead of forming a new court, why not reform the judges selection process and adopt ad hoc judges?

 

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2007 Legal Predictions: What is HOT?

Thursday, January 4, 2007

No computer as a legal subject, no determining your child using copyright, no international law on online games, we only talk about 2007 not 2030. What's going to be hot? Jennifer Granick wrote in Wired that (i) contract law and (ii) privacy law will be the two hot topics for 2007.:
Free speech and fair use don't mean much if software end user license agreements, or EULAs, or website terms of service, or TOS, can take those rights away. Contract law allows private parties to agree to forgo most rights in exchange for some privilege. Vendors of goods and services take advantage of modern contracting tools, like click-through or shrink-wrap, to impose terms and conditions on using software or websites. These documents purport to limit the user's legal rights.

Two things have changed. First, it's no longer acceptable only to catch criminals during or after a crime has been committed. Counter-terrorism requires identifying and neutralizing threats ahead of time. Second, collecting information about everyone is now much cheaper and easier than it used to be. We spread information about ourselves as we use the internet, shop online, talk on our cell phones, send e-mail or use electricity. These activities leave a digital trail that database and search technology can store and access relatively inexpensively.
Privacy has been quite a debate in 2006, both for lawyers and non lawyers. Futurist such as Brin had invented the concept of "Transparent Society"and Cascio introduced the "Participatory Panopticon". For the lawyers, Posner's books "Uncertain Shield: The U.S. Intelligence System in the Throes of Reform" and Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency both discusses privacy issues as an inevetable aspect of law enforcement. I think these thoughts contributes significantly to the privacy legal debate in 2007.

I agree with her analysis on online contracts. Even lawyers wouldn't bother spending time to study the content of online contracts. Thus, following this, another aspects of law will arise: consumer protection and competition law.

You can read the whole thing here.


 

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How virtual office works

How stuff works posted an interesting article on how to run a virtual office. For advanced techies most of the tips provided there are basics and refers more to Small-Office-Home-Office (SOHO) concept, nevertheless, there are some which is relatively new such as the use of Virtual Assistance. There is also a link to Virtual Office Group, a london based company offering telephone reception services and renting office spaces on hourly basis.

I can actually lists down free programs that could be used for Virtual Offices as I have been using it myself, but I think I'll just do it on a later post. See also my previous post on virtual lawfirm, long tail and law 2.0.

 

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Geothermal projects in Indonesia

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Update on renewable energy investment in Indonesia. There is an interesting article in the Jakarta Post on Geothermal investment. Indonesia has developed only less than a thousand MW of geothermal power although it is estimated to have nearly one-third of the world's geothermal resources. A research (in Bahasa) from the ministry of mineral resources mentioned that there are 252 geothermal locations which have been identified along a volcanic belt extending from Sumatera, Java, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi until Maluku. These heat resources has the total potential of 27 GWe, which puts Indonesia as the biggest geothermal potential country in the world!

The Jakarta Post op ed told that (i) tax uncertainties and (ii) legal uncertainties are among the frontlines of investment barriers. Geothermal investment is really a high risk-high return investment scheme which involves huge exploration and exploitation funds. It is never intended as a short term investment. Investors are afraid that their contracts are not being honoured.

I'll give a little comment on the legal barriers. Generally contract observance remained high. Business partners will think twice before deciding to bailout from a contract since litigation costs are too high. The problem stems not from observance of the contract but mainly due to regional autonomy. How much share will the regions receive are the hot issue. There has been a case where Garut regional government requests Chevron and the Central Government to disburse concession money for their region. They even threatened to invalidate Article 41 of the Geothermal Law to the Constitutional Court. Article 41 governs a transitory provision which stipulates that all contracts prior to the entry into force of the Geothermal Law will remain valid. Under this transitory provision, regions don't receive any money. Of course, their attempts to invalidate the article are futile.

It must also be noted that the 2003 Geothermal Law gave many power to regions in particular with respect to licensing. This is a good opportunity for investors as they can now deal directly with the regions. During the old days, people will have to deal with state owned enterprise such as PLN or Pertamina. However, it is necessary to make sure that both central and regional government approves or condone the projects. It wouldn't be good if after a few years of investing the license given by regional government is revoked by the central, or a license given by central government is revoked by the central. In any event, although the regions are granted more power, it is always important to asks some sort of condonation from the central government.

Click here to read the Jakarta Post article and here to get some general views on geothermal potentials in Indonesia.