Comparative law and justice/Indonesia

Part of the Comparative law and justice Wikiversity Project

Subject classification: this is a comparative law and justice resource.

Basic Information

Flag of Indonesia

Indonesia is part of Southern Asia. It is an island located between the Indian and the Pacific Ocean.The area of Indonesia is about 1,904,569 sq km. 1,811,569 sq km is land and the rest is water. If you want to compare that to a state in the United States it would be a little less than three times the size of Texas. It is made up of around 17,00 Islands. Indonesia is a neighboring country to Timor-Leste, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea. The climate is tropical with very humid, hot weather. One major city is Jakarta, which is also Indonesia's capital. The population here is 9.121 million people. The population of Indonesia is 242,968,342 people; 28.1% are between the ages of of 0-14, 66% between the ages of 15-64, and only 6% over 65 years old. Indonesia is a very diverse area. They have eight main ethnic groups. Javanese makes up 40.6% of Indonesia's population. The Sundanese makes up 15%, the Madurese makes up 3.3% of the population, the Minangkabau makes up 2.7% of the population, the Betawi makes up 2.4%, the Bugis make up 2.4%,the Banten only make up 2%,the Banjar make up 1.7%,while the left over 29.9% of the population's ethic background is categorized as other or unspecified. The main language spoken in Indonesia is Bahasa Indonesia. This is the country's official language. other languages that are spoken here are English, Dutch and Javanese. Indonesia has four main religions. This is made up of 86.1% Muslim, 5.7% Protestant, 3% Roman Catholic, and 1.8% Hindu The last 3.4% of the population is considered other or unspecified. Some key industries that Indonesia has are petroleum and natural gas, textiles, apparel, footwear, mining, cement, chemical fertilizers, plywood, rubber, food. Their key agriculture is rice, cassava (tapioca), peanuts, rubber, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, copra; poultry, beef, pork, eggs. Some things that Indonesia exports are oil and gas, electrical appliances, plywood, textiles, rubber imports- machinery and equipment, chemicals, fuels, food products.

Location of Indonesia

Brief History

Between 1942 and 1945 Indonesia was ruled by Japan, but was first colonized by the Dutch. Indonesia declared it's independence on August 17th of 1945 The first people that lived in Indonesia were the ancestors of the Malays, Javanese and other Malayo-Polynesian groups and still today these people make up most of Indonesia.

Economic Development, Health, and Education

Life expectancy in Indonesia is pretty similar between males and females. Males average life expectancy is 73.69 years and for females it is 68.53 years. The infant mortality here is 28.94 deaths per 1,000 live births. Most people in Indonesia have an average education level of thirteen years in school. This is the same for males and females. The literacy rate for males is higher than females. 94% of males can read while only 86.8% of females. Indonesia's economic development is 1.033 trillion GDP. The GDP per capita is $4,300. The highest 10% of the populations income is 32.3% of the income, while the lowest 10% of population's income is only 3%.

Governance

Indonesia Constitution The president is elected by a majority vote. When they are elected into office, this is for a five year period. After those five years are up the president is able to be reelected if he chooses he wants to be. In order to become a president you must be an native born in Indonesia.

Judicial Review

The supreme court in Indonesia is the final court to look things over. this court is called the Mahkamah Agung and has no power of the judicial review. Once they make a decision it is final. The constitutional court does have power for judicial review.

Courts and Criminal Law

Indonesia has 8 main types of courts. These types of courts are general, industrial relation dispute courts, fishery, religion, state administrative, military, tax and constitutional. Most disputes appear before general court. Industrial relation dispute courts take care of settling disputes that have to deal with employment. the fishery court is similar to the industrial relation dispute court but it deals with subjects that are more serious. The state administrative court is designed to challenge the public administrative. The military court is used when crimes are done by a soldier or someone in the military. when their is a problem between a tax payer and a taxing authority the tax court jumps in to fix it. Lastly the constitutional court deals with constitutional problems and their decisions can not be appealed. The law in Indonesia is that there is an assumption of innocence until you are proven guilty. When it comes to the courts thought they are not one hundred percent honest. Sometimes they take bribes in order for the grant of bail. In Indonesia advocates are the same as our lawyers in the United States. Usually they are private practiced. They do have to go through legal training though. Foreign lawyers are not allowed to come to Indonesia and practice their law. even though this is said, many foreign lawyers do practice law in Indonesia Indonesia has a republican type of government. Like the United States they have three main branches; the judicial branch, the legislative branch and the executive branch. Indonesia does have a constitution that was established in august of 1945 after they declared independence. This constitution had had many amendments up until 2002.

Punishment

Only one part of Indonesia uses corporal punishment. This is in the Aceh Province. This punishment does not apply to anyone of Christian religion. It usually happens in front of a Mosque. Corporal punishment is allowed to men and women but is not allowed for juveniles. The kind of corporal punishment is canning, which leaves bruises and welts on the persons body. Corporal punishment is usually used to punish people for gambling or alcohol use. This is not seen often but it is still around. A juvenile in Indonesia is considered anyone under the age of 18. From January until May of 2003 approximately 4,325 juveniles were held in jail throughout Indonesia and about 84% of them were in adult prisons. When it comes to juveniles the judge has three options. The first is that the judge can choose to send the juvenile back to his parents without any punishment. The judge can also choose to send the child to a government institution but not punish them. Last the judge can consider the juvenile guilty and punish them. These juveniles may be punished by some sort of fine, being put in jail or a detention facility, or some kind of supervision. The prison conditions in Indonesia are dirty and very overpopulated. There is poor health care while in prison and maybe people suffer from HIV.

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Law Enforcement

Indonesia fits into the taxonomy of types of police structure as a decentralized multiple coordinated structure. This means that there are many local forces not just one main force. The military and the police used to work together, but since 1999 the police and the armed forces are now separate. 3% of the GDP in Indonesia join their military. The requirements to join are that you have to be 18 years old. You also have to be active for two years and in the reserve until you are 45 years old. The police officials in Indonesia are very close to the community. their mission is to keep the people safe and have a bond with them. The people of Indonesia respect the police officers and help them out whenever possible. There is some corruption in Indonesia. when asked in 2010, 45% of police officials have admitted to accepting some kind of bribe.

Crime Rates and Public Opinion

Many crimes in Indonesia go unreported, but Indonesia's crime rate is rising due to increasing urbanization. So while looking at crime rates they tend to be lower than the actual crime that is going on there. Some of this could be blames by the poor law enforcement they have. Indonesia crime is considerably high in area of tourism. These crimes are not huge crimes more along the lines of credit card fraud or pickpocketing. Robbery is also a crime that tends to occur in Indonesia. The intentional homicide rate per 100,000 for Indonesia is 8.9. In comparison to the United States we are at about 5.6 In 2002, Indonesia found that around 49,500 prostitutes were under the age of 18.

Family Law

Under the Marriage Laws of Indonesia a marriage is not official unless the female is over the age of 16 and the male is over the age of 19. Even if they are over this age but under 21 they must have parents consent in order for a marriage to be recognized. If you get divorced in Indonesia and you are a female you must wait 100 days before you are able to remarry. Also in Indonesia all marriages must be performed in a religious ceremony before they are recognized by the Civil Register Office. Polygamy is allowed in Indonesia under religions that support it as long as you have permission by your wife and judicial permission. You also have to be financially able to support more than one family, and you must treat both wives and children equally. A divorce may happen by either partner in Indonesia, but only if the other partner has committed adultery, Alcoholism, addiction to drugs, a gambling problem, or cannot support the family. Inheritance in Indonesia is usually male dominant. Most inheritance goes to children or the spouse of the deceased. Regarding adoption in Indonesia the adoptive child must be of the same religion of the adoptive parent. If the religion of the child is not known then they are considered to be Muslim. For people in the United States it is pretty difficult to adopt a child from Indonesia. There is a pretty strict adoption law that is followed. Couple from the US trying to adopt must actually live in Indonesia for two years and also be between the ages of 30 and 45. There are also requirements that say the couple must be married for five years. They can have an adopted Indonesian baby or if they already have children the mother must not be able to have anymore. The adoptive parents must also believe in God and appear at a court hearing. The child that is being adopted must be under five years of age and the child must be in company of a welfare program.

Human Rights

In Indonesia there is a right to freedom of religion. Recently in Indonesia the freedom of minority religious groups has not been protected by the government or the police, and recently around 114 people have been arrested because of their views. Also in Indonesia people have human rights. This states that all people have a right to life and freedom of torture or bad treatment. These human rights sometimes are violated by the police officers. Examples of this are use of unnecessary firearms, torture or inhuman treatment or punishment, and lack of protection against minority groups.