A case of the imposing Shari’a (Islamic law) in local government

By FATKHURI, S.IP, M.A Introduction As a result of reform era in Indonesia, there has been any dramatic shifting in Indonesian political circumstance which is signed by the issued of laws No. 22 1999 which is in turn amended by the laws No 32 2004. This law is concerned with the distribution of power from central government to local government or Provinces around Indonesia. This is a response to reform demand that local government should be given a huge authority to develop its regions rather than subordinated by central government as this occurred under new order regime for 32 years. This regional autonomy law mentioned ‘that local governments at the district level are entitled to have their own implementation regulations and the central government will no longer interfere in the local administration’ (Assyaukanie, 2007). Accordingly, this paves the way to all provinces government in Indonesia to have an enormous opportunity to create policy or regional regulation (Peraturan Daerah/ PERDA) without central government intervention. It is noteworthy that one of regulations which currently become critical issues is the implementation of religious by laws (shari’a) so called Islamic regional policy (Peraturan Daerah/PERDA syari’ah ). The implementation of this policy brings a lot of problems within society. It is because the implementation of religious by laws (shari’a) to certain degree strictly uses Islamic principles as the mainstream in order to govern society. With regards to these phenomena, some people argue that religious by laws (shari’a) is inevitable to solve society’s problems as secular law cannot resolve the existing problems.

Kam, 17 April 2008 | 05:36 WIB