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Essay Freedom of information indonesia

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LEGAL PROPOSITION ON THE PUBLIC FREEDOM OF INFORMATION OF INDONESIA
By: Adistra Kusuma Waligalit, Faculty of Law of Gadjah Mada University

This study identified several Legal defects regarding the Act on Public Freedom of Information of Indonesia. These legal defects will be explained along with the reccomendations of remedy as below.

INTRODUCTION
After experiencing a difficult time in New Order era (1966-1998), when the civil rights to freely obtain information had been abused by the government at that time, a glimmer of hope emerged when the government enact a new Act regarding Public Freedom of Information in 2008 (Act number 14). But just as too good to be true, the hope was only short lived. It seemed that the government is …show more content…

One of the notable use of this rule is the “thirty year rule” by the law in United Kingdom, where the government will publicly release the cabinet papers after thirty years they were created.
Executive Order 13526 imposed in United States is an example of a provision that handles classified informations.
SECOND: Unclear definition of public entity.
Public entity is a body that obliged to give the informations to the public. In article 1 of Act number 14 year 2008, it is mentioned that the definition of public entity is an institution of executive, legislative, judicative, and other institutions with the function relating to the state administrative or non-government institution of which receives budget from the state or from donation.
The definition of public entity given by the article is very broad and blur. It will only obscuring the purpose of the existence of public service. The act itself does not regulate about the obligation of any private business entities that is under contract with public entity, considering many cases occured because of private entities claim to acting on behalf of the government to obtain certain legal permit.
This is the fundamental weakness of the act where it does not clearly regulates the subjects of the law and still lacking further explanation regarding the public entity. Without it, people will be very hard to obtain informations from the

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