UNAIR NEWS – Discourse of human rights has always been an interesting topic. Human rights are closely related to various topics, like democracy and social justice.
The difficulties in accessing social justice among minority groups are associated with human rights. Access is one of the human rights that every citizen must receive.
Pradnya Wicaksana, a third-year legal student at the Faculty of Law (FH) Universitas Airlangga explored the problem in his paper “Centralization, Racism, and Militarization: A Portrait of Autocratic Legalism in Papua”. He submitted the paper for the 2023 International Postgraduate Student Conference (INGRACE), an international conference for Master of Laws, Faculty of Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada, held from February 9 to 11, 2023.
Realizing former idea
To UNAIR NEWS, Anya shared his first-ever conference experience on Saturday, February 18, 2023. However, he had planned to write the idea since September 2022.
“The writing only took more than a week, I’ve had the idea since September. The hard part was when I had to manage my time to write the paper and prepare for the judicium preparation,” Anya said.
Being the youngest participant in the conference was quite impressive for him. The participants were post-graduate students, practitioners, academicians, activists, and other professionals in human rights, democracy, and social justice.
“It was an impressive experience, I could have a discussion with the professionals and gained new insight. The seminar, which featured the Chairperson of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), Judges of the Constitutional Court (MK), the Chairperson of the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan), and many others was interesting,” Anya said.
Law and other related aspects
The “Legal Challenges and Opportunities in the Field of Human Rights, Democracy, and Social Justice in the Post-pandemic Era” conference broadens Anya’s views on interdisciplinary legal science. It also provides more knowledge for law activists in discussing human rights, democracy, and social justice.
“We should discuss its relations to the cultural aspect, politics, anthropology, sociology, etc,” he said.
Discussing Papua
In the paper, Anya elaborated on his opinion on autocratic legalism in Papua. Autocratic legalism is a phenomenon in which law enforcement is conducted to increase executive power and eliminate accountability, which leads to an authoritarian regime.
“In 2019, a racial case happened to Papua students in Surabaya, which sparked huge riots in Papua. It was driven by structural imbalance. As a cause, Papuans urged for a referendum,” he said.
However, the government handles it through unnecessary intervention using a centralized approach. Law enforcement was also conducted using a militarization approach with illegal military operations.
“This autocratic legalism is a juridical manifestation of oligarchic political interests in Indonesia, especially in Papua,” Anya stated.
Author: Dewi Yugi Arti
Editor: Feri Fenoria
