Jimly: Strengthen Minority Rights To Balance Majority Decisions

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JAKARTA - Member of the Indonesian Regional Representative Council (DPD) Jimly Asshiddiqie said that recognition of minority rights (minority rights) needs to be strengthened as a balancer of decisions taken by the majority group (majority rule).

"Minority rights is not only related to ethnicity and religion, but also political and economic decisions," said Jimly in the Indonesian Youth Democracy Forum (IYDF) discussion forum held by the Foreign Policy Community Indonesia (FPCI) in Jakarta, Friday night (6/10).

According to him, the practice of democracy in Indonesia applies the principle of rule of law, namely that the state is regulated based on regulations and law, not by the will of certain parties.

However, in reality according to Jimly, due to the application of the majority rule principle, more parties have seats that determine the final results of the formulation of the regulation.

"If it's just a majority rule, democratic practices are only procedural and formality. So we have to add minority rights in the majority rules to balance," he said as quoted by Antara.

The former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court stated that the involvement of women who are currently encouraged in various fields, especially in formulation and decision making, is an example of the application of minority rights in majority rules.

"Therefore, to make democracy a substantial, this rule of law must be applied functionally," he said.

In addition, according to Jimly, dynastic political culture and feudalism must be changed because it hinders political institutionalization.

He assessed that the modernization of political culture and political institutionalization is something that must be done to improve democratic practices in Indonesia.

The IYDF discussion forum titled 'Protecting Democracy in the 21st Century: The Role of the Youth' is the closing of a series of IYDF programs whose implementation is also supported by the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) Indonesia.

IYDF was followed by 20 youths from all over Indonesia to have a dialogue with institutions and community organizations throughout Indonesia to formulate a joint statement containing their recommendations to make the implementation of democracy in Indonesia better.