Have decades of justice reform efforts come to fruition at all? Rifqi Assegaf tells the tale
A new podcast episode is now live on YouTube
Dear readers,
The Reformist Podcast has just released a new episode on our YouTube channel on reforming Indonesia’s justice system. We sat down with Rifqi Assegaf, an expert staff member at the Corruption Eradication Commission and a former member of the Supreme Court’s judicial reform team.
In our conversation with Rifqi, he spoke about the structural and bureaucratic reforms made to the Indonesian justice system over the past three decades after the 1998 Reformasi and the systemic challenges that continue to linger despite efforts to eradicate them.
Perhaps his most inspiring tale was at the peak of Reformasi. After the collapse of the authoritarian New Order regime, Rifqi, a recent Law graduate at the time, marched with his friends—fresh out of school—to the Supreme Court with a set of demands and a blueprint for reforming the country’s judiciary.
Not only did the Court accept their demands, but it also opened its doors for these students and other representatives of civil society to repair the broken system from within.
Moments like this are why The Reformist exists: to unveil hidden stories from actors who were, and are still present in changing Indonesia, one meaningful reform at a time.
However, while inspiring and certainly noteworthy, Indonesia’s justice system today remains faulty at best and neglected at worst.
With the unjust indictments of hundreds of students and activists, intra-governmental overreach in the judiciary, and legal impunity for attacks on human rights defenders, much more still has to be done to uplift Indonesia’s rule of law.
If you would like to learn more about the ins and outs of our country’s justice system, listen in on this episode and share your thoughts on the state of our country’s “rule of law”.