YOGYAKARTA-Vice President Boediono attended the inauguration of Prof. Denny Indarayana, S.H, LL.M., Ph.D. at Universitas Gadjah Mada’s Senate Hall on Monday (6/2). Vice President and Mrs. Herawati Boediono were present with Yogyakarta Governor, Sri Sultan HB X and GKR Hemas, and Rector Prof. Ir. Sudjarwadi and wife.
The inauguration was also attended by state officials such as Chairman of House of Representatives, Marzuki Alie, Chairman of Constitutional Court, Mahfud MD, and Chairman of KPK Abraham Samad. Attending also were some ministers, deputy ministers and members of DPR and DPD.
At the inauguration as professor of the Faculty of Law, , Denny Indrayana delivered inaugural speech entitled Fair and Democratic Presidential System.
On the occasion, Denny said that a fair and democratic presidential system is a balanced mix between the authority and restriction of political support and opposition control, but the balance of power alone is not the goal.
"An absolute balance would be dangerous. Absolute balance presents an impasse. Power system which is too balanced may raise political noise and sensation with no solution," the Deputy Minister of Justice and Human Rights said.
Therefore, Denny formulated a presidential system that is fair and democratic, namely effective presidential system (PE), which requires constitutional authorities (KK), political support (DP) in addition to control (K). In the mathematical formula it is PE = KK + K + DP.
Denny admitted since the reform year 1998 to the present, Indonesian presidential system produced the much reduced constitutional authority of the president, the result of four amendments of Constitution 1945 and various laws that reduce authority of the president. Not only the constitutional authority is reduced, but political supports have never reached a majority due to the re-appearance of multi-party system.
"One of the most strategic authorities which is limited is presidential authority in terms of the appointment and dismissal of officials," the man born in Kotabaru, South Kalimantan, December 11, 1972, said.
Although there is a reduction in presidential power, Denny argued that the reduction of presidential authority is not a problem. Precisely, the reduction of power is necessary to prevent the president transforming into an authoritarian leader due to having huge authority without control. Indeed, according to Denny, what has to be studied is the continuing trend to reduce the authority of the president.
"The problematic thing is not the improvement in the president's authority limitation, but rather the lack of major political support to the president. The solution must be found, one of which is by designing simpler political party system," Denny said.
Denny asserted that to design an effective, fair and democratic presidential system, constitutional authority will depend on sufficient political support to achieve at least a simple majority in parliament, and control which remains effective, not only from the state but also non-state bodies, especially from civil society and free press.
President's constitutional authority should be sufficient in order to not only present the paradox between strong legitimacy and high support with very limited power of government. In addition to constitutional authority, the president's political support should be provided through simpler political party system and solid coalition, which is a combination of ideological coalition qualitatively and fixed-limited quantity of coalition.
"In addition to the formal-constitutional control of opposition, the control of president should also be open in terms of social control. Finally, a presidential system which is effective, fair and democratic would more likely be realized only with the above formulation, i.e. PE = KK + K + DP," Denny said.