VVI Research Meeting 2023-2024
Prospects for law reform and democracy under Indonesia’s new president
- Tim Lindsey (speaker); Adriaan Bedner (Chair/discussant)
- Date
- Wednesday 28 February 2024
- Time
- Location
-
Kamerlingh Onnes Building
Steenschuur 25
2311 ES Leiden - Room
- B1.M07
President Jokowi’s decade in power has delivered democratic regression in Indonesia; the civil society organisations that helped deliver the country’s post-Soeharto transition from authoritarianism seem weakened and intimidated. However, campaigning for the 14 February general elections is focused on personality rather than policies and offers little prospect of change. In fact, the presidential candidate now leading the polls, Prabowo Subianto, has made no secret of his wish to return to the repressive model of Soeharto’s New Order. If he wins, democratic regression may well become wholescale dismantling of the laws and institutions of Reformasi. The two other candidates seem more supportive of the existing system but in a system dominated by oligarchs, patronage and ‘money politics’, are their promises meaningful? This seminar will explore the implications of the election outcomes for Indonesian democracy and law reform.
Biography:
Tim Lindsey is one of Australia’s leading experts on Indonesian law, and has advised governments, business, international organisations, courts and legal practitioners in Indonesia and Australia. He is Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at the Melbourne Law School. He holds a Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Letters from the University of Melbourne and completed his PhD thesis in Indonesian studies. A specialist in a wide range of aspects of Indonesian law, including public law, criminal law, commercial law, and family law, he also teaches and researches shari'a (Islamic law) in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. He has won national and university teaching awards, and was an ARC Federation Fellow from 2006 to 2011. Tim is a member of the Victorian Bar and was the long-serving Chair of the Australia Indonesia Institute until 2016. His more than 100 publications include Indonesia: Law and Society; Islam, Law and the State in Southeast Asia (three volumes); The Indonesian Constitution; Drugs Law and Practice in Southeast Asia; Religion, Law and Intolerance in Indonesia; and Strangers Next Door: Indonesia and Australia in the Asian Century. He is a founder and an executive editor of The Australian Journal of Asian Law.