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As the House of Representatives takes aim at 64 priority bills this year, t he national security bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation up for debate. There is no question that passage of the bill is overdue — the legislation aims to fill existing security holes in Indonesia. Notably, those occasions when police forces are incapable of maintaining security, or when the military is unable to provide assistance due to a lack of procedural clarity, as has been the case with recent troubles in Papua and Aceh.

At the same time, the bill in its current form poses many pitfalls and has been subject to no shortage of criticism. The government should move carefully, lest it end up creating more problems than this legislation is supposed to solve.

There are many positive aspects to the bill. In the words of J. Kristiadi, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, it serves to put the police back in their proper place on issues of national security. In the years since the fall of Suharto, the police force has effectively been given free rein in maintaining domestic order and finds itself on equal footing with the Armed Forces (TNI). The original intent of this arrangement was to bolster the status of the police, which had been hierarchically inferior to the military.

The problem, however, is that because the police force is essentially responsible to no one but the president, many analysts argue that they are out of control, the product of a passive president unwilling to offend powerful law enforcement figures. Many recent incidents, notably the Mesuji and Bima killings, were attributed to police arrogance and the absence of any deterring fear that law enforcement would face meaningful sanctions if they took the use of force too far.

The law would remedy this by putting the police force under the supervision of the yet-to-be-formed National Security Council (DKN), which would be led by a ministerial-level administrator. The law could thus be useful in reining in police excesses, subjecting police conduct to closer scrutiny and placing the entire police force under an active administrator. In other words, this is a polite way to finally put the police under ministerial control, which has long been strongly opposed by an institution unwilling to see its power curbed.

The law could also improve cooperation between police forces and the military in maintaining security in restive areas. While the police force has the responsibility to maintain internal security, in reality it lacks the training and manpower to effectively span the archipelago.

The military has the ability to provide much assistance to the police in this regard, thanks to its strong organization and reach across Indonesia. Yet it is constrained by the 2004 Military Law and international scrutiny, preventing it from actively aiding the police unless requested under the condition of military emergency. Civilian law enforcement has often proved hesitant to ask the military for help, whether from simple pride, a lack of proper guidance on when to do so or due to a fear of being perceived as incompetent or ineffective.

The law will fill this void by establishing and articulating the framework under which all the elements of government can and should work together.

Despite these noble intentions, the bill still has some major flaws. Most important, it adds several layers of bureaucracy in the form of the DKN. The council is intended to address the problem of too much power being held by the police. At the same time, the DKN would have the power to coordinate interactions between military and intelligence units, a power supposedly belonging to the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs. The overlap in responsibilities is a recipe for a potentially muddled chain of command.

Moreover, the bill also specifies the creation of provincial, district and city-level National Security Coordinating Forums (Forum Koordinasi Keamanan Nasional Daerah) headed by governors, district heads and mayors, respectively. These new bodies would also add layers of bureaucracy and bloat the ranks of civil servants.

At the same time, a question remains: On whose desk does the buck stop when someone messes up? The law specifies the president as having the authority and responsibility to mobilize the elements of the national security apparatus. And right alongside this authority, the bill states that the regional forums should determine the duties, responsibilities and command and control of personnel, depending on the severity of any given situation.

Will the president claim that he or she has the authority and responsibility only to mobilize forces and that his or her duty stops there? Will this absolve the regional heads? Among the military, police force and intelligence apparatus, who will be held accountable, should the situation spiral out of control? With so many layers of bureaucracy piled up, the blame game may prove popular.

Another big problem lies in the allowance for “people” to get involved in “providing national security.” Even though there is a qualification that the involvement should be through “reserve and supporting components,” the law regulating both functions has not been passed yet, with the discussion getting snagged on the question of the “slippery slope” of the military re-establishing its role in society in ways reminiscent to the New Order.

In addition, the wording is vague enough to allow every single militant group to get involved in “providing security,” supplying the legislative rationale for many ambitious people to create their own “security” groups while providing more opportunities and justifications for the existing groups to create more havoc in society due to the “need” to establish security.

While the overall intent of the bill is good — to provide more checks on police power and improve coordination among the police, intelligence units and military — this current draft has many problems that must be addressed. If lawmakers fail to do so, we will simply see further additions to an already bloated government and not long after that, more dysfunction among the actors of the nation’s security apparatus.

Yohanes Sulaiman is a lecturer at the Indonesian National Defense University (Unhan).