In court with the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission: old battles and new identities in the context of reform

Abstract

President Soeharto's resignation on May 1998 came as a result of intense dissatisfaction with his management of the economy and public dissatisfaction with rent-seeking activities of his family and cronies. The resignation ushered in a heady period of reformasi or reform, marked by a euphoric return to democratic national elections in 1999 and legislation which sought to write reform into national politics and governance. The Press Act of 23 September 1999, electoral reform, the abolition of the Department of Information and the creation of new independent watchdog bodies were part of a process which placed the rule of law and accountability to the public centre stage in Indonesia. In the five years since the 1999 national elections, however, conservative political and cultural forces have resorted to litigation and law and order rhetoric to slow down and even reverse the reform agenda. In this article the process of reform resistance through legal deadweighting is documented and explored in an examination of an excessive resort to judicial remedies brought against the work of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission in its first period of office.

Keywords:

• Indonesia
• democratic transition
• Indonesian Broadcasting Commission
• media regulation
• rule of law

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to two anonymous reviewers, Vedi Hadiz, Richard Howson and Indonesian colleagues attending the ICEAPS and CAPSTRANS Grant Workshop ‘The KPI: The First Three Years', 28 January–2 February 2007 at the University of Wollongong for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The author alone is responsible for its shortcomings.

Philip Kitley holds the Chair of Communication in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication at the University of Wollongong, and is a Research Affiliate at the Australian Research Council Key Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS). He has published many chapters and articles on the media in Indonesia, and is working on a research project concerned with ‘publicness’ and popular sovereignty in Indonesia. From 1986-89 Philip Kitley served as Cultural Attaché at the Australian Embassy, Jakarta. Research for this article was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant DP0343059.

Notes

1. The decision concerning Article 44 and requirements to correct publicly false or misleading news reports will not be discussed here as 44:1 was poorly drafted and was not concerned with the structural position or role of the KPI, which is our focus here.

2. The outcomes of these cases have been frustrating rather than decisive. The Constitutional Court ruled that the KPI did not have the power to request a review of government regulations. The Supreme Court ruled that the KPI had exceeded its powers in introducing a formal decision re broadcasting standards, a decision which the KPI accepted and defused by reissuing the Standards document with a new title. The KPI's suits alleging that the regulations drafted by KOMINFO (PP49-52 and PP11-13) were in conflict with the Broadcasting Law were decided in favour of KOMINFO on the basis of the Constitutional Court's ruling of 6 August 2004 that the KPI had no authority to enact operational regulations as that was the business of government. The claim and counter-claim in these suits contributed to a perception that in its first three years the KPI had done little else except fight with the government and the industry (personal interviews with KPI and industry representatives, Jakarta, September and December 2007).

3. In the second KPI, there are four Commissioners with industry experience, which has helped to create a more ‘industry friendly’ regulator.