ALAWMM moving forward, with some pushbacks

Written by ABC News

In an interview with ABC News Indonesia has shed light on how it plans to change its judicial system to help create a harmonious judicial system across ASEAN. However, the involvement of third parties suggested by Brunei may hinder the effectiveness of decisions being made. 

ALAWMM's key role is to harmonise legal systems across ASEAN. What about the countries that have the most different judicial systems? Singapore practices the Common Law System, which is based on British Common Law, while Indonesia practices a Mixed System of Civil Law and Islamic Law. 

The differences in these judicial systems can cause legal conflicts in cross-border cases due to disagreements in extradition and prosecution. One example for which their difference in judicial systems that has caused disputes was in 2021. In early 2021, Singapore and Indonesia were facing unresolved issues over fugitive economic offenders. Indonesian authorities continuously demanded the extradition of several fraudulent businessmen and tax avoiders, whom they believed to be hiding in Singapore. 

An extradition treaty was signed in 2007, but it was not ratified in Indonesia’s parliament until early 2023, and to now, it is not fully operational due to lingering incompatibilities between Singapore and Indonesia’s judicial systems. The inability to collaborate judicial processes across the two judicial systems proves as a problem in the ALAWMM debate. In council, a representative from ABC News interviewed both Indonesia and Singapore to understand how they plan on working together to harmonise their legal systems and allow for smooth ASEAN-related judicial cases to be handled. 

During the council session, a representative of ABC News asked the Delegate of Indonesia how they plan on ensuring smooth collaboration with other ASEAN member states that do not practice Civil or Islamic Law. The delegate of Indonesia said, “Within Indonesia, it will need to straighten out and iron out its laws, which may contradict what Indonesia wants. Regarding working with other member states, refining bilateral and multilateral agreements is a must; it is important to run the ASEAN way with negotiations and treaties with other countries. Indonesia plans on refining its laws and possibly contradicting ideologies to compromise to find common ground between all member states.” 

Indonesia often puts its laws first and is slow to change them, even when working with other countries in ALAWMM. Hearing from the Delegate of Indonesia that Indonesia plans on “refining their laws” to work more smoothly with member states in ALAWMM was surprising. 

Indonesia’s keenness to proactively recognise previous disputes with other countries over the judicial system and provide solutions as to how it will be able to work well with countries that follow other judicial systems may mark the start of a transformation in ALAWMM. 

Unfortunately, not all delegates are keen on combining ideas with other members in the council.

The delegate of Brunei has brought up special case scenarios in the proposed Criteria On Reinforcement and Execution of Judgements (CORE-J) framework, when compensation is needed on this basis of prosecution. 

The delegate encourages the implementation of “multinational treaties where judgements that are believed to be inconsistent will be brought up to a third party, made out of legal expertise from each state.” However, ABC News believes that this implementation still places some gaps in the effectiveness of decisions that can arise. 

When the representative of ABC News interviewed the delegate of Brunei on the possibility of a resulting conflict between the opinions of the court of judges, he deemed it to be a “good question that should be brought up”. With this concern being brought up, this delegate of ABC News still waits for a solution to tackle this concern that the third party will not be able to reach a common consensus to effectively continue exequatur processes. 

Hence, though Indonesia is taking a step forward to push the council for effective approaches on the scope of cases that are to be decided, proposals like CORE-J seem to need amendments on their long-term feasibility. Overall, ALAWMM might have been taking one step forward, but they also may be subconsciously stepping into a hole.

Written by Victoria Hwang, Eden Lee, and Jessica Xiao