Abdullah Alamudi, Jakarta – The eyes and ears of broadcast organizations focused on the Constitutional Court building Friday, anxiously waiting for the outcome of a meeting between four government agencies that will decide the fate of the broadcast media in the country.
Independent regulatory body the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), Information and Communications Minister Sofyan Djalil, members of House of Representatives Commission I on information, and Constitutional Court judges met, after a dispute between the KPI and the information ministry over who should do what in handling the broadcast media reached an impasse.
KPI has stopped processing applications from broadcasting organizations until all the seven controversial government regulations on broadcasting are revoked, after Sofyan insisted on enforcing the regulations while debate on them continued.
The boycott leaves the government without documents to process and its desire to control the broadcast media thwarted – at least for the time being. Under the Broadcasting Law, all applications must first be verified by the KPI.
On its part, the newly set up legislative caucus, whose members include all political parties represented in House Commission I except President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, threatened to boycott the information ministry's budget deliberation if the government failed to review the controversial regulations, a process which the politicians said had to involve the KPI.
In another twist, the Constitutional Court is coming under pressure following reports which questioned the integrity of two of its judges who heard the motion for a judicial review of the 2003 Broadcasting Law.
Judge Achmad Syarif Natabaya, who was an expert advisor of the Justice and Human Rights Ministry and member of the government team that drafted the Broadcasting Bill, and court president Jimly Asshiddiqie, admitted to owning shares in Global TV, one of the television stations which requested the judicial review.
Jimly claimed that although the shares, with a nominal value of Rp 500,000 each, were registered under his name, they actually belonged to an Islamic organization of which he was the secretary-general. A total of Rp 375 million had been deposited for the shares. Jimly said the shares still existed.
To uphold impartiality, both the law on judiciary power and the Constitutional Court Code of Ethics prohibits a judge from hearing a case in which he or she is indirectly or directly involved. Jimly denied that the shares registered under his name had influenced his decision.
The Constitutional Court ruling in 2003 revoked two of the 22 articles brought for a review by six broadcast-related organizations. There was no dissenting opinion.
The broadcast organizations requested the judicial review over fear of what they called KPI's "monstrous power". The broadcasting industry has had decades of experience dealing with government officials and bureaucrats but not with the nine independent-minded members of the KPI, which must always defend the public's right to information.
Article 62 of the Broadcasting Law stipulates that rules and regulations on broadcasting shall be jointly formulated by the KPI and the government, and be enacted through government regulations. The judicial review awarded the monopoly to form such regulations to the government, at the expense of KPI's status as an independent regulatory body.
Empowered by the court's decision, many believe the information ministry, which is in fact run by bureaucrats of the New Order's powerful information ministry, maintains the old paradigm of exercising control over broadcast media through government regulations.
Civil society, and members of the House, are of the opinion that the regulations run counter to the Broadcasting Law and article 28 of the Constitution on press freedom and the public's right to information and article 33 on social welfare.
President Yudhoyono signed the regulations last year, but their implementation was postponed for two months following public protests, to enable the information ministry and the KPI to review them.
There has been no meeting between the two, however. There was a suggestion to postpone the enactment of the regulations for another month to give the conflicting parties extra time to review the controversial regulations. The government, however, insisted that the review should not delay the enforcement of the regulations on Feb. 6. KPI has lost confidence in the ministry, particularly after it was left in the cold during the drafting of the regulations.
The opposition groups insist that information is a public domain. They assert that allowing the government to encroach upon that would only mean the government would be tempted to regain control over the press.
The public is now anxiously waiting for the outcome of the meeting at the Constitutional Court building. Whatever the result may be, public interests cannot be sacrificed.
[The writer is a senior journalist, who teaches at Dr. Soetomo Press Institute. He can be contacted at abdullahalamudi@yahoo.com.]