One of the essential competencies that Government Science students must possess is the ability to create legal drafts. On May 11, 2012, Government Science students from the 2009 cohort enrolled in the Urban Politics course conducted a legal drafting practicum. Dr. Tri Sulistyaningsih, M.Si., the course instructor, stated, “The legal drafting practicum is part of developing students' competence in creating and analyzing public policies. This practicum is divided into two sessions: the first session provides students with the philosophy of legal drafting, while the second session offers technical knowledge of legal drafting.” In the first session, the material was delivered by Dr. Sulardi, M.H., a law lecturer at UMM, and the second session was facilitated by assistants from the UMM Law Laboratory.
Law is a product of politics. Political elites interact in political processes to produce policies or legal regulations. Thus, the form of legal regulations reflects the prevailing political configuration. Sulardi explained, “Political configurations influence the shape of laws. Undemocratic political configurations will produce undemocratic laws, and vice versa. Therefore, a sound political process is needed to produce sound laws,” he explained during his lecture to students in Room 408, GKB I UMM.
The principles of law in the formation of legal regulations are crucial, as the content of the law follows the principles it adopts. “The principles required in the formation of legal regulations are transparency, legal certainty, and consistency across types of law,” said the alumnus of the Doctoral Program at the University of Indonesia.
The material presented by Dr. Sulardi inspired students to delve deeper into legal drafting. Afrizal, a participant in the legal drafting practicum, expressed, “Legal drafting is fascinating to learn. We hope this practicum will continue to be held and developed in the future,” said the Government Science student from Aceh.
