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Peter Burns. The Leiden Legacy: Concepts of Law in Indonesia. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 191. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. 307 pages.
Petra Stockmann. Indonesian Reformasi as Reflected in Law: Change and Continuity in Post-Suharto-Era Legislation on the Political System and Human Rights. Hamburg: Institut fur Politische Wissenschaft, Universitat Hamburg, 2004. 424 pages.
CHANGING INDONESIA'S CONSTITUTION: A REVIEW ESSAY
Between 1999 and 2002, the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyaratan Rakyat, MPR) approved four rounds of amendments to the Indonesian Constitution. Taken together, the additions to the constitution more than tripled the length of the original text. Among the most important changes contained in the postSuharto amendments are the establishment of procedures for the direct election of the president, limitation of presidential tenure to two five-year terms, transfer of primary legislative functions from the executive to the legislature (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR), creation of a constitutional court with the power to review the constitutionality of legislation, transfer of significant governmental powers from the center to local institutions, and the addition of a broad set of individual rights.1
The post-Suharto constitutional reforms took the form of amendments to the constitution of 1945. The authors of those amendments, however, could as easily have chosen to scrap the existing text and start fresh. The reformers retained the title and much of the language of Indonesia's first constitution, but the changes they made amounted to a repudiation of its essential philosophy and spirit. A principal objective of the post-Suharto constitutional restructuring was to prevent the rise of another repressive and open-ended dictatorial presidency. To achieve that objective the reformers drew clear boundaries between executive and legislative powers, created new centers of state power in local governments, and established mechanisms to avoid concentration of government power in any single institution.
The Leiden Legacy
The two books discussed here both speak to the significance of those constitutionbuilding developments, albeit from very different starting points. Peter Burns's book addresses debates over legal policy for the Indies occurring in Holland during the early decades of the twentieth century. In particular Burns examines efforts by scholars associated with Leiden University to make Indonesian custom, or adat, the basis for colonial law. As indicated by his title, however, Burns is...