Politics of Land Law For Indonesian Farmers(Towards the Bill of Land in Indonesia)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper are: first, to examine critically how the politics of agrarian law in Indonesia can
provide legal protection for land ownership for farmers in Indonesia, so that the transition of function of
the land from agricultural land into non-agricultural sector still pays great attention to the farmers as the
vulnerable groups (poor, abandoned); second, to examine critically how the draft of the land law which
is now being discussed in parliament can give protection to the farmers, so that they have bargaining
position of land ownership equally with those of the capital owners.
This paper uses three analysis namely: 1) juridical analysis to understand the legal norms of the land law
for the farmers in Indonesia; 2) historical analysis to understand the history of land ownership for farmers
since independence of Indonesia which had not been proporsionil compared with the ownership to those
of investors in Indonesia; 3) analysis of prospective of agrarian law corcerning with the pros and cons of
the Bill of Land being discussed before the Parliament.
This paper wishes to provide alternative for the rule of land for the farmers, so that the politics of law
related to land in Indonesia correlated with farmers’ strategic position as one of the main agents of the
development.