By: Rahmat Siregar )*
President Jokowi continues to strive to simplify regulation through the Omnibus Law scheme. Simplification of the regulation was taken to realize a big vision to create laws that are flexible, simple, competitive and responsive.
Omnibus Law is indeed something that can be considered new, discussion of this issue appeared in various media when President Joko Widodo gave his instructions in a cabinet meeting to line ministries / institutions to cut 42 thousand rules that were considered to hamper investment.
Of course we all know that one of the problems in growing investment in Indonesia is overlapping regulations.
Omnibus Law is a bill that contains more than one material or several materials that are made in one law. According to Barbara Sinclair Omnibus Law can be interpreted as the preparation of regulations consisting of many and not related subjects, issues and programs so that in general are complex and long.
The omnibus law scheme desired by Jokowi is intended to simplify regulations that are currently considered to be overlapping.
As a realization of this idea, the Former Governor of Jakarta also invited the Indonesian Parliament to jointly review two major laws that will be proposed, namely the Employment Creation Act and the UMKM Empowerment Act.
In its dynamics, this omnibus law proposal was not only limited to the 2 Laws, the Government through the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia is currently preparing an omnibus law in the field of taxation in order to support the creation of a healthy investment climate in Indonesia.
As a follow up, the government will propose omnibus law schemes in various fields in order to enter the 2020 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas). The government is also committed to fighting for the proposal until it is approved by the Indonesian Parliament.
Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning, Sofyan Djalil, once blurted out the concept of the omnibus law. The concept is also known as the omnibus bill which is often used in countries that adopt a common law system such as the United States in making regulations.
The regulation in this concept is to make a new law to be able to amend several laws at once.
Of course the statement appears not without reason, specifically related to investment. Sofyan gave an example, when there were proposals to improve regulations in the forestry sector, what had to be revised was Law No. 41/1999 concerning forestry.
But there are still obstacles in other regulations, such as Law No. 32/2009 concerning Environmental Protection and Management (PPLH) or Law No. 5/1960 concerning Basic Rules for Agrarian Principles.
The use of the omnibus law scheme seems to be able to answer the problem of overlapping legislation in Indonesia.
Even though Indonesia has a civil law system, the concept of Omnibus law can still be used by the Indonesian government to overcome two things. First, the problem of the criminalization of state officials. Both omnibus law can be used in Indonesia for uniforming central and regional policies in supporting the investment climate.
On different occasions, Deputy Chairperson of the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI) Sugiharto stated, Indonesia’s economic challenges in the coming years are indeed quite large. Because according to him, affirmative action is needed to accelerate Indonesia’s economic growth.
Sugiharto also appreciated the government’s steps related to the omnibus law policy. According to him, the omnibus law can trigger economic growth potential in the form of job opportunities.
ICMI also supports that the policy related to the omnibus law can be accelerated immediately by the government, because if it is too late the demographic bonus can have an impact on the social tsunami.
Vice Chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) in International Relations Shinta Widjaja K. Puts hope that the investment climate in Indonesia will be able to boost the national industry in 2020. Thus, it can contribute significantly to economic growth.
Support for the Omnibus Law Draft also came from the Mayor of Bandung, Oded M Danial, who fully supports the plan to implement the Omnibus Law in government organizations. Oded considered this to be a very good breakthrough from President Joko Widodo in the second period of leading Indonesia.
Oded rate, omnibus law policy will streamline and more effective performance including in the Government of the City of Bandung. He also said the readiness of the Bandung City Government to implement the Omnibus Law and wait for direction from the central government.
The application of the omnibus law is expected to be able to synergize various ministries and institutions to the regional government to collaborate with each other for the progress of the nation.
)* The author is a social political observer