Legal Mobilisation and Justice: Insights from the Constitutional Court Case on International Standard Schools in Indonesia

Rosser, Andrew; Curnow, Jayne

doi:10.1080/14442213.2014.916341

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Moreover, where litigation might be prohibitively expensive for the average Indonesian citizen, NGOs can pool the resources of their members and donors (Rosser and Curnow, 2014;Curnow, 2015;Rosser 2015b). Rosser (2015a: 187) goes so far as to claim that:…”

Section: Setting the Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Demand-Side Constitutionalism: How Indonesian NGOs Set the Constitutional Court’s Agenda and Inform the Justices

Nardi¹

2018

CILIS Policy Paper Series

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Since its creation in August 2003, the Indonesian Constitutional Court’s decisions have legalised the defunct PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia, Indonesian Communist Party), mandated an open party-list election system, invalidated efforts to privatise the electricity and water sectors, and required the government to formally recognise indigenous faiths. This paper argues that non-government organisations (NGOs) have had a crucial and underappreciated impact in determining both which cases reach the justices, and the content of the Court’s final decisions. It finds that NGOs are responsible for bringing the majority of socioeconomic claims, resulting in some of the Court’s most controversial and far-reaching decisions. In addition, the justices are significantly more likely to quote petitions submitted by NGOs, meaning that the information NGOs include in their briefs is critical in shaping the justices’ understanding of the legal and policy issues at stake. These findings have important implications for rule of law projects in Indonesia. In particular, they underline the importance of demand-side reforms. Donors should consider improving the capacity of NGOs to detect and inform the Constitutional Court about rights violations. They should also consider investing in the research capacities of NGOs as the justices rely heavily upon the information they provide.

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Section: Setting the Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Demand-Side Constitutionalism: How Indonesian NGOs Set the Constitutional Court’s Agenda and Inform the Justices

Nardi¹

2018

CILIS Policy Paper Series

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“…Rosser and Curnow (2014) argue that for marginal peoples the mobilization for justice can only be carried out through social support structures such as concerned NGOs and advocacy groups, repeat players who have experience with the legal world and pro bono contributions from lawyers and experts. They are dependent on civil society and its altruism.…”

Section: Song For Peacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The political relationship between such movements can become exploitative and produce oppressive structures that might impose new hegemonic discourses and even perpetuate elements of the experienced injustice. The needs of the community can become subordinated to the NGOs’ interests, muting their voices as well as authoritatively defining the type of justice that they should or would like to seek (Forsyth, 1999, 2004; Nadel, 2008: 35; Rosser and Curnow, 2014). Failure to live up to the ecological agenda can lead to disillusionment with the justice seekers, and vice versa, and subsequently to their abandonment in some form or another.…”

Section: Song For Peacementioning

confidence: 99%

‘Lead-polluted water changed our lives’

Sitthikriengkrai

Porath

2017

South East Asia Research

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At the turn of the millennium, inhabitants of a small Karen village situated in one of Thailand’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites sought access to environmental justice in the Thai courts over industrial pollution that had contaminated their local stream with lead and caused them years of degraded health and social misery. The Karen villagers were only able to gain access to justice with the help of NGOs that served them as a support group during a period when Thailand was experiencing active civil and democratic awakening. The NGOs, which had a common cause with the Karen villagers, helped them enter the ‘environmental justice frame’ and its discourse. Their experience of lead pollution was framed within a moral ‘rhetoric of exposure’, which came to guide their activism against intransigent agencies and policies, as well as their mobilization for access to justice.

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“…In both cases, they argue, it is difficult to imagine individuals successfully pursuing their rights in court without the financial, organisational and technical assistance provided by NGOs such as LBH Jakarta, PEKKA and Indonesia Corruption Watch. In an earlier paper, Rosser and Curnow (2014) argued that NGOs played a crucial role in supporting efforts by parents to challenge through the Constitutional Court Indonesian government policy on so-called "international standard schools". The papers published here provide further evidence that successful citizen efforts to defend rights contained in JLFPHR in Indonesia have only occurred when citizens have had access to an effective SSLM that has enabled them to mobilise the resources required to launch and sustain expensive and time-consuming court cases.…”

Section: Jlfphr and Legal Mobilisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realising Rights in Low Quality Democracies: Instructive Asian Cases

Rosser

2015

Asian Studies Review

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Do justiciable legal frameworks for the protection of human rights (JLFPHR) promote the realisation of human rights in countries with low quality democracies? If so, under what conditions? And what do answers to these questions imply for activists' strategies for promoting human rights? This essay considers these questions drawing on the papers published here on Indonesia, Nepal, Malaysia and Timor Leste. It suggests that while rights agendas encounter serious political, social and institutional obstacles in low quality democracies, JLFPHR make a positive contribution to rights realisation by: (i) aiding political mobilisation by poor and marginalised groups and their supporters in the NGO movement and (ii) providing a legal basis for these groups to challenge rights breaches through the courts, at least where viable legal pathways for such efforts exist and these groups can muster the financial, organisational and technical resources required to launch and sustain court cases. In terms of strategy, the paper thus suggests that, in addition to constructing JLFPHR, rights activists should focus on facilitating political mobilisation around rights issues, constructing legal pathways that are likely to be receptive to rights causes, and creating support structures to enable citizens to exploit these pathways.

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Legal Mobilisation and Justice: Insights from the Constitutional Court Case on International Standard Schools in Indonesia

Cited by 14 publications

References 12 publications

Demand-Side Constitutionalism: How Indonesian NGOs Set the Constitutional Court’s Agenda and Inform the Justices

Demand-Side Constitutionalism: How Indonesian NGOs Set the Constitutional Court’s Agenda and Inform the Justices

‘Lead-polluted water changed our lives’

Realising Rights in Low Quality Democracies: Instructive Asian Cases

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