A database on Indonesian laws

For the past two years, World Wide has been working in stages with the Indonesian Cabinet Secretariat (SetKab) to support a project to provide electronic access to Indonesian laws enacted since 1945. The laws will ultimately be available in full text – initially to SetKab staff, and later via internet access to the Indonesian legal profession, general public and international community.

Our involvement began in 2005 with two in-Australia experiential study programs to scope and develop a workplan for the multi-year project. SetKab staff commenced implementation in 2006, including initial installation of a local area network, phased electronic back-capture and validation of laws, and establishment of the legislative database and processes.

Earlier this year under a contract with the Indonesia – Australia Legal Development Facility (IALDF), we were involved in scoping a detailed workplan for 2007-2008. This next stage of SetKab’s ambitious program has focussed on continued back-capture of documents, establishment of metadata, hyper-linking, and indexing of legal documents which will be available electronically. The most recent phase, June 2007, has involved provision of technical assistance for the specification of enhanced software design and IT infrastructure for the legislative database. This will enable SetKab to conduct a second tender and development process for significantly improved system capabilities.

Picture: some members of the SetKab system design team (Rita, Ratna and Suwanto) demonstrating the system prototype to Stewart Fenwick of IALDF.