OPENNESS OF GOVERNMENT

AND JUSTICE
 OPENNESS OF GOVERNMENT
• Definition of Openness of Government
• The important of Openness of Government
• The Characteristics of Openness of
Government
• The Roles of Open Government
• Open: transparent
• Openness Government is the governing
doctrine which holds that the business of
government and state administration should
be opened at all levels to effective public
scrutiny and oversight.
• Government inform the factual information
about the implementation of government
programs
• Open government is one of the characteristic
of good government.
 Good Government
• Regarding to UN ESCAP (United Nation Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific); the characteristic of
good government are:
1. Participation
2. Rule of law
3. Transparency
4. Responsiveness
5. Consensus orientation
6. Equity and inclusiveness
7. Effectiveness and efficiency
8. accountability
 Good government
• Regarding to MTI (Masyarakat Transparansi Indonesia); the
principles of good government are:
1. Participation of social society
2. Rule of law
3. Openness principle
4. Stakeholder concern
5. Consensus orientation
6. Fair/equal principle
7. Effectiveness and efficiency
8. Accountability
9. Strategic vision
 The reason of the important of openness
government
• One of the reason of the important of
openness government is to prevent abuse of
power/authority of government.
• The openness principle: government must be
applied governmental
system/program/activity transparently
 Democratic country implement openness
government principle
• There are three the reasons of the important
of openness government:
1. Basically, the power/authority tends to be
perverted
2. The essence of democracy system are: from,
by and for people. The existence of
government is representative of people
3. People able to search out information freely
 The essential elements of Democracy’s
Implementation
• there is a demos, a group which makes political decisions by
some form of collective procedure. Non-members of the
demos do not participate. In modern democracies the
demos is the nation, and citizenship is usually equivalent to
membership.
• there is a territory where the decisions apply, and where
the demos is resident. In modern democracies, the territory
is the nation-state, and since this corresponds (in theory)
with the homeland of the nation, the demos and the reach
of the democratic process neatly coincide. Colonies of
democracies are not considered democratic in themselves, if
they are governed from the colonial motherland: demos
and territory do not coincide.
• there is a decision-making procedure, which is
either direct (for instance a referendum) or
indirect (for instance election of a parliament).
• the procedure is regarded as legitimate by the
demos, implying that its outcome will be
accepted. Political legitimacy is the willingness
of the population to accept decisions of the
state (government and courts), which go against
personal choices or interests. It is especially
relevant for democracies, since elections have
both winners and losers.
• the procedure is effective in the minimal
sense that it can be used to change the
government, assuming there is sufficient
support for that change. Showcase elections,
pre-arranged to re-elect the existing regime,
are not democratic.
• the demos has a long-term unity and
continuity, from one decision-making round to
the next - without secession of the minority.
• in the case of nation-states, the state must be
sovereign: democratic elections are pointless if
an outside authority can overrule the result.
 The Democratic pyramid:
The main elements of democratic Government
(Beetham & Boyle: 1995, p. 31)

Open and
accountable
government

A
democrati
c society

Free and Civil and

fair political
elections rights
The characteristics of open government
1. Government provide factual information about
their policies that will and has been made
2. There is chance for public and mass media to
search out governments documents (Robert A.
Dahl)
3. There is government’s open meeting for public
4. There is government’s public consultation
systematically
 Openness Limitations of
open government’s implementation

• Meaning: there are information that

is secreted by government, it is not
public consuming.
• Openness limitation is made by
legislative institutions in Law form.
 There are Five categories related with the
openness limitation/ secret information
(Beetham and Boyle)
• considerations of cabinet
• Political advise of ministers
• Particular information which, if it is published
will give loss to the national defense; the
implementation of democracy or citizens
safety
• Trade secrets of private companies
• Private archives
 JUSTICE
• The definition of Justice:
– Behavior and attitude in relationship of
human being;
– a demand to treat others base on their
right and obligation;
– equal right.
• The kind of Justice
• The important of Justice guaranty
 The Concept of Justice
• Justice: The value of being right and fair
• John Rawls (the famous American Philosopher):
"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions,
as truth is of systems of thought.”
• Aristotle: giving somebody based on what they
deserve
• Franz Magnis-Suseno: treating somebody base
on their own right and obligation
 Kind of Justice
• Commutative justice: consensus and natural
right
• Distributive justice: proportionality principle
• Legal justice: bonum commune
• Vindictive justice: peace and welfare
• Creative justice: freedom to create something
• Protective justice: protection
 SOCIAL JUSTICE
Franz Magnis-Suseno
• Social Justice is the application of justice value
base on the structure of economic, politics,
social, culture and ideologies in civil society.
• Basically, The application of social justice is the
efforts of people to change unfair social
structure become fairer social structure.
• The indication of social injustice: a group of
people or a certain social class does not get its
right.