Ina Parlina and Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The Home Ministry says it will review more than 2,500 bylaws in 2013 following a proposed sharia rule in Aceh to ban women from straddling motorcycles.
"We will verify all bylaws, the old ones and the new ones," Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi told reporters in his office on Thursday.
The ministry has been tasked with reviewing bylaws enacted by regional administrations to ensure that there are no conflicts with national law, which takes precedence, and that the bylaws do not hurt the nation's investment climate. It is not clear which bylaws will be given priority consideration.
While the ministry cannot annul bylaws, it can ask local administration to do so. In the last resort, the ministry can recommend that the President order bylaws amended or revoked.
Local administrations across the country have enacted a host of bylaws since they received legislative authority following the introduction of regional autonomy in 2002.
Gamawan said that the ministry has partially or completely rejected 951 of 15,000 bylaws that it has verified since 2009. The ministry annulled a further 1878 bylaws between 2002 and 2009, according to data.
Almost 1,800 of the annulled bylaws dealt with regional taxes and levies, 29 dealt with third-party political donations and 22 pertained to alcoholic beverage regulation.
Seven-hundred-fifty-eight bylaws are currently under evaluation by the ministry, comprising 589 on regional taxes and levies, 19 on alcoholic beverages, 71 on third-party political donations and 79 on other matters.
The Home Ministry's review comes after activists criticized the central government for ignoring discriminatory bylaws, which they say was evidence of the government's lack of interest in promoting pluralism.
The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), for instance, claimed that it found 282 bylaws that justified discrimination against women as of August 2011. Muhammad Isnur from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute criticized the Home Ministry for failing to uphold the nation's motto Bhineka Tunggal Ika, or unity in diversity.
"They do not dare touch controversial areas," Isnur told The Jakarta Post. "They were there to settle problematic bylaws on regional taxes and levies, but not the ones that force Muslim women to wear headscarves or schoolchildren to be able to read Koran."
Isnur said that the Home Ministry was not doing enough to abolish bad bylaws, despite issuing joint ministerial decrees No. 20/2012 and No. 77/2012 with the Law and Human Rights Ministry to give the central government the authority to strike down discriminatory local ordinances.
In 2011, Isnur and the Indonesian Legal Aid pushed the ministry to recommend that the President revoke 11 bylaws issued by regional administrations across the country said to discriminate against followers of Ahmadiyah, an oft-persecuted minority Muslim sect. Isnur said there was no progress on the anti-Ahmadiyah bylaws as of today.
Concerns on regional administrations running roughshod over Constitutional rights and national laws reemerged earlier this month, after the administration of Lhokseumawe, Aceh, proposed introducing a bylaw to ban women from straddling motorbikes.
The proposal, prompted by fears of women revealing their curves on motorcycles, sparked outrage and mockery in Indonesia and overseas.
In his defense, Gamawan argued on Thursday that he could not do anything about the proposed anti-straddling bylaw, as it was only a proposal. Meanwhile, Muslim scholar and gender studies expert Musdah Mulia said the Home Ministry would likely continue to ignore cases of human rights violations.
"Without doubt, they will do nothing. They have no gender perspective, nor understanding of human rights and religion," she said.