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Regions await guidance for annulment of bylaws

Source
Jakarta Post - June 20, 2016

Ganug Nugroho Adi and Ni Komang Erviani, Surakarta/Denpasar – Although some regional administrations have reiterated their readiness to annul problematic bylaws, they say they will await guidance from the central government on the technicalities of the annulment process.

An official with the Surakarta administration, Kinkin Sultanul Hakim, said at the moment there was no official guidance that could be used as a reference for the bylaw annulment process.

"We are still waiting for an explanation on these technical matters. We have asked about it at the provincial administration but we were told to wait for information from the Home Ministry," Kinkin said on Saturday.

Separately, the Surakarta Legislative Council's (DPRD) bylaw making agency (BP2D) head Putut Gunawan said so far what the city administration had done was revise bylaws by omitting or adding content in them.

He said, however, revisions could not be applied to problematic bylaws, which needed a total overhaul or revocation. The Surakarta administration plans to revoke seven bylaws that are thought to be problematic or negatively affect investment.

Of the seven bylaws to be revoked, three were proposed by the city administration while the remaining four were proposed by the Home Ministry. Surakarta Mayor FX Rudyatmo said some of the bylaws to be revoked would be replaced with new ones while for the others, no replacement bylaws would be made.

"We will soon discuss which bylaws are to be replaced or revoked," said Rudy, adding that for the abolishment of the bylaws, his administration would wait for guidance from the Home Ministry or the Central Java provincial administration.

Kinkin said the seven bylaws to be revoked included Bylaw No. 5/2003 on company registration documents, Bylaw No. 9/2003 on business licenses, Bylaw No. 4/2010 on education and Bylaw No. 3/2012 on telecommunications tower development and regulation. These four were proposed by the Home Ministry.

The other three to be revoked, which were proposed by the city administration, are Bylaw No. 8/2008 on city property management, Bylaw No. 1/2014 on disturbance permission and Bylaw No. 2/2014 on ground water management.

"For the bylaw on city property management we propose its absolute abolishment because it is against Government Regulation No. 27/2014 on state and regional property management," said Kinkin, head of the Surakarta administration's law and human rights division.

Meanwhile, the Bali administration said on Friday the governor had annulled at least 86 bylaws and regulations from regencies and city administrations across the resort island.

Bylaws on alcoholic beverages, free smoking areas and bylaws related to education, were annulled. "These regulations were annulled, mostly because they were not in line with the law," the Bali administration's legal section head I Wayan Sugiada said.

Citing an example, Sugiada said all bylaws that regulated the education system at the senior high school level had to be annulled as the authority for handling senior high schools came from the provincial administration. Meanwhile, the free smoking area bylaw was annulled because the term used in the bylaw was inappropriate.

The governor also annulled several bylaws that could have negatively affected investment, such as the bylaw on telecommunications towers.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/06/20/regions-await-guidance-annulment-bylaws.html

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