The Bleak Picture of E-Participation in Indonesia

Although Indonesia has a fairly good E-Government Development Index (EGDI) and E-Participation Index (EPI) at the global level, the implementation of digital participation in the national legislative process still faces two fundamental and interrelated problems.The first problem is the mess and ambiguity at the regulatory level. Currently, there are at least three main portalse-participationoperated by different institutions:SIMAS PUUby the DPR RI,e-partisipasi.peraturan.go.idby the Directorate General of Legislation (Ditjen PP) of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, andpartisipasikuby the National Legal Development Agency (BPHN) of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights. The existence of these three independent platforms creates several serious problems. First, there is an overlap of authority, especially between the Directorate General of Legislation and the BPHN, which are both under the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, which confuses the public about which is the official government portal. Second, these platforms were established before a strong legal basis existed, and until now there have been no implementing regulations (Presidential Regulations, DPR Regulations, and DPD Regulations) mandated by Law 13/2022 to regulate technical public participation. As a result, all of these portals operate in a legal gray area, without clear guidelines on how input from the public should be managed, considered, and responded to.