TRI-HELIX PERSPECTIVE CONSTRUCTING MEANINGFUL PARTICIPATION IN MUNICIPAL BY-LAW REGULATING URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The assertion of meaningful participation in legislation-making has been rising in Indonesia, highlighted by the Verdict of the Constitutional Court No. 91/PUU-XVIII/2020, which encourages the Law on Job Creation of 2020 to be re-tabled in the legislative agenda and to fulfill the necessary procedures. The respective doctrine imposing “the right to be heard”, “to be considered”, and “to be explained” is supposed to be incorporated in the Law No. 13 of 2022, which is considered inadequate, including at the level of local government by-law-making (Peraturan Daerah). This study aims to contextualize the adoption of meaningful participation in municipal by-laws regulating urban development (hereinafter equal to spatial planning). An identification of current provisions, including those brought by the Job Creation Law 2020 and 2023, is provided to outline their lacunae. Chronologically, by applying a socio-legal approach, the author has been searching for a model of meaningful participation in municipal by-law decision-making, particularly in urban development, alongside the rise of similar doctrines developed in court hearings when reviewing the mentioned Job Creation Law. Thus, it deserves to reveal a compilation of tri-helix actors’ perspectives obtained from interviews with government elements, academia, and communities represented by selected civil society organizations. As a result, the study serves as a model of meaningful participation, primarily following a ‘Procedure’ pattern. It shall embed the phases of ‘Before’, ‘During’, and ‘After’ decision-making in processing municipal by-laws that regulate spatial planning.