Within the framework of the Netherlands Ministry of Justice sponsored project to strengthen legislative drafting capacities of young Indonesian law-drafters from the Department of Justice and Human Rights, as well as Indonesia’s parliament, a second training course was organized in Jakarta in October 2009. The course was a continuation of the first course, conducted by professor Willem Konijnebelt and two Indonesian experts in May this year. A number of topics, already introduced during the May course were now deepened and further explained in the 5 day training course, which was hosted by the Directorate-General for Legislation in Jakarta.
Like the course in May, the group of trainers consisted of two Indonesian experts – Professor Maria Farida of the Universitas Indonesia and Ms. Sri Hariningsih, a former director of the Directorate for Legislation – and two Dutch experts: Mr. Jan Janus, retired senior counsel of the Ministry of Justice and Dr. Nico Florijn of the Academy for Legislation, CILC’s Dutch partner in the project. As the project leader, I had the honor and pleasure of attending the course and accompanying the experts to Jakarta.
The Directorate for Legislation had made very serious preparations for the course, as not only facilities proved to be excellent, but it should also be mentioned that all directors of the Directorate moderated a part of the course. At the final day the director-general Dr. Abdul Masru Wahid handed over certificates to all participants.
It was inspiring to see how actively the often quite young legislative drafters participated in the courses. Indonesian and Ducth experts had to answer many questions after each presentation and time proved to be too short to finalize all discussions. Also the discipline of all participants should be mentioned here. Course days were unusually long and at the last day, the course started even at 8.30 am in the morning. During the last day of the course, the two Dutch experts had prepared a case study for which the participants in small groups had to prepare a solution. In a very open and pleasent atmosphere, participants joined around a table, consulted legal databases and prepared draft regulations and provisions for amendments to existing laws in order to address the problem. During the deliberations, there was also sufficient time for jokes and laughter. Then all groups had to present their respective solutions, followed by questions and comments of other groups. This was certainly not a way of training, participants are used to. But, highly appreciated by participants and as they indicated in the evaluation of the course, certainly something to be repeated in future projects. The overall impression of the course participants was very positive and CILC has already received the request for a further deepening course for the same participants, as well as spreading these kind of courses to other target groups as well.
Eric Vincken