Regulatory capture on emergency due process of law-making

Abstract

AbstractDuring COVID-19, the law-making process in Indonesia needs to be of better quality due to non-transparent and hasty deliberation. The law-making process is often carried out with minimal participation and adherence to the standard. Several decisions of the Constitutional Court, such as the Mining Act of 2020 and the Job Creation Act of 2020 case, show constitutional immorality in the law-making process. For some reason, minimal participation access is indicated by the regulatory capture. This paper intends to answer two research questions: first, how and why capital’s power is interested in dominating the law-making process. Second, what is the scenario to minimise and prevent the negative impact of the influence of the power of money in the law-making process? This study uses a normative legal research method with a conceptual approach. This study shows that the law-making procedure can be a form of realising the fulfilment of more vital economic interests. As a result, the law-making process can become a meaningless procedure. This practice will keep various laws and regulations away from the public interest. This hostage situation can be carried out through corrupt methods such as bribery, political donations, and a cognitive bias model because legislators are indirectly affiliated with business interests. Therefore, lawmakers need to prevent conflicts of interest among business actors. Those conflict of interest prevention clauses at the constitutional level could be an option.

Keywords

• Regulatory capture
• law-making
• legislation
• Heng Choon (Oliver) Chan, Department of Social Policy, Sociology, and Criminology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
• Regulation
• Administrative Law