VII. Systems, Partnerships, and Theme Parks
Systems
I spent this week doing additional research to improve my paper and preparing a presentation on it for the Constitutional Court.
I also met with more constitutional court staff to learn about information technology and public relations of the court. Information technology is critically important to any complex business or government organization, allowing communications and record-keeping. Without the email server, the financial reporting system, the case management system, the HR platform, and other secure platforms, then nothing could really get done.
I was impressed with how many of these solutions were engineered in house by the court’s own developers, as opposed to being licensed. I think there are distinct disadvantages and advantages to this. On the one hand, the court knows best the business needs of the court, and when you are working with a third-party vendor you must work within their limits as far as customization. If things need to be changed, you can also re-engineer things in-house. There is more control.
But new staff might also need more training to learn to work with unfamiliar internal systems than if they were working on a familiar licensed platform created by major software developers. Development costs for internal solutions will generally also be more expensive up front than purchasing licenses, but licenses tend to be more expensive over the long run, as well as less predictable. It would inconvenient if an organization (for instance a university) had to switch everybody from Google to Microsoft because Google’s fees became unreasonable.
On the public end, IT supports public accessibility to the work of the Court. This is critically important for an archipelagic nation the size of Indonesia. The court has even since before the pandemic supported video-conferencing hardware and software installed at university locations around the country to facilitate remote hearings. IT also operates live streams on YouTube of court hearings and provides access via Zoom. The court’s website has access really any information you could want about the Constitutional Court. Transcripts from hearings are available six hours after they have concluded.
The protocol office works with petitioners and government officers coming to the Constitutional Court to make sure they are aware of their expectations. They also help coordinate travel for the justices. The Constitutional Court is the Permanent Secretariat for Planning and Coordination the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts, a regional forum consisting of 23 constitutional courts on the Asian continent. The organization promotes the rule of law and improved functioning of constitutional courts by facilitating exchanges of information and lessons learned by international colleagues. The current presiding court is the Constitutional Court of Mongolia. The two official languages of the organization are English and Russian, a lingua franca in Central Asian nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. There is another division of the Constitutional Court servicing foreign partnerships outside of Asia, including the study program for Constitutional Court staff at William & Mary and NCSC.
New Year and Dunia Fantasi
Wednesday was a holiday celebrating the Islamic New Year. I went to a kind of fun very instagrammable indoor art gallery where you ride around on roller skates called the Moja Museum. On Friday, the central research division visited Dunia Fantasi, Dufan, a theme park that is part of the Ancol, a planned resort and entertainment district on the Java Sea waterfront. It was fun getting to have a day away with friends from the court!