Reconstructing Democratic Lawmaking through the Right of Opposition: Redressing Power Imbalances in Indonesia’s Constitutional Design

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-529-4_8How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Democratic Lawmaking Process; DPR; Meaningfull Participation; Fat Coalition; Right of Opposition

Abstract

The absence of institutionalized opposition rights in Indonesia has created an imbalance in democratic lawmaking, where governing coalitions dominate the process with minimal countervailing power. Using a socio-legal method that combines normative constitutional analysis, this research examines the constitutional and statutory gaps that marginalize opposition in Indonesia’s lawmaking process. The study finds that the current framework of the 1945 Constitution, the MD3 Law, and the P3 Law fails to provide formal recognition or procedural guarantees for opposition, leading to superficial deliberation and reinforcing super-presidentialism. The final results show that institutionalizing the Right of Opposition through factional standing, leadership quotas in legislative organizational bodies, minority reports (minderheidsnota), the right to propose counterbills, and research budget incentives, can substantively enhance checks and balances, deliberative debate, and meaningful participation. Embedding these mechanisms within Indonesia’s legislative framework would reconstruct democratic lawmaking by restoring equilibrium between coalition and opposition forces, ensuring that dissenting voices contribute constructively to the formulation of just, transparent, and legitimate laws.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Mei Susanto
AU  - Riyan Fernando
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/28
TI  - Reconstructing Democratic Lawmaking through the Right of Opposition: Redressing Power Imbalances in Indonesia’s Constitutional Design
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Democracy and National Resilience 2025 (ICDNR 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 77
EP  - 99
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-529-4_8
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-529-4_8
ID  - Susanto2025
ER  -