Pemikiran Kebangsaan

By: Bangkit Rahmat Tri Widodo

The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia’s decision affirming the prohibition on active members of the Indonesian National Police (Polri) from holding civilian positions constitutes a monumental step in Indonesia’s long journey of democratization. This ruling marks a pivotal moment in reinforcing the principle of civilian supremacy, restructuring the relationship between the state’s coercive institutions and the administrative bureaucracy, and correcting bureaucratic practices that emerged from normative ambiguity over the past two decades.

In its considerations, the Constitutional Court emphasized that the phrase “resign or retire from police service” constitutes an imperative constitutional requirement, not an administrative option subject to negotiation. Accordingly, any active member of Polri seeking to assume a civilian post must relinquish their institutional status without exception.
This decision cannot be detached from Indonesia’s historical context. For more than three decades under the New Order regime, the line between civilian and security functions was blurred. The dwifungsi ABRI (dual function of the Armed Forces) symbolized how the state permitted security apparatuses to enter the administrative and political spheres, thereby creating power imbalances, weakening civilian representation, and eroding democratic consolidation. The 1998 Reform movement sought to correct these conditions by separating the military (TNI) from the police (Polri) and limiting the roles of security actors strictly to defense and domestic security. However, regulatory loopholes continued to allow active Polri officers to hold certain positions in ministries, state institutions, and state-owned enterprises (BUMN). These practices are precisely what the Constitutional Court has now corrected.

The significance of the Court’s ruling lies not only in reaffirming institutional boundaries but also in reorganizing the architecture of state power. A modern democratic state is built on the fundamental assumption that coercive authority must be separated from administrative authority in order to avoid excessive concentration of power, prevent conflicts of interest, and guarantee public accountability. The Constitutional Court provides strong legal legitimacy to this principle while serving as a constitutional safeguard to prevent Indonesia from drifting back toward the patterns of authoritarianism that characterized its past.

This writing aims to analyze the ruling in depth through a multidisciplinary approach. The analysis employs perspectives from civil–security relations, constitutional and rule-of-law theory, modern bureaucracy theory, and international practices in managing security institutions. This study departs from the understanding that the Constitutional Court’s decision is not merely a legal–formal matter, but a political–legal event with structural implications for Indonesia’s democratic system.
 
Theoretical Framework: Civilian Supremacy, Rational Bureaucracy, and Security Sector Reform

A rigorous analysis of the Constitutional Court’s ruling requires a strong theoretical foundation to understand why prohibiting active Polri members from occupying civilian positions is a normative necessity in a democratic state. Three major theoretical frameworks are relevant here: the theory of civilian supremacy in civil–security relations, the theory of rational bureaucracy in modern governance, and the broader concept of security sector reform (SSR).

Within civil–security relations theory, Huntington (1957) introduces the concept of objective civilian control, a model in which security institutions are organized as professional bodies focused solely on their technical security functions and kept away from political or civilian administrative arenas. In this model, democracy can only function stably when security actors have no opportunity to enter civilian or political positions that may compromise the independence of public decision-making. Feaver (2003), using a principal–agent approach, argues that security institutions function as agents who must remain subordinate to their principal, namely, civilian authorities. When security actors enter administrative domains, their lines of loyalty become blurred, disrupting the principal–agent relationship.

Croissant and Kuehn (2017) demonstrate that Southeast Asian states failing to maintain clear boundaries between security apparatuses and civilian bureaucracies tend to experience democratic stagnation. They highlight that one indicator of democratic decline is the expanding role of security forces in positions beyond their core mandate. When security personnel occupy civilian administrative roles, they bring organizational hierarchies, command structures, and coercive legitimacy that are incompatible with the deliberative, procedural, and law-based ethos characteristic of modern public administration.

The framework of modern bureaucracy offers another critical theoretical basis. Weber (1978) conceptualizes rational bureaucracy as an institution functioning through formal procedures, technical competence, meritocracy, and administrative accountability. Security apparatuses, in contrast, operate through the logic of command, hierarchy, and obedience. Peters (2018) emphasizes that merging these two organizational logics within a single position produces an institutional mismatch that undermines bureaucratic professionalism and erodes policy-making integrity.

Security sector reform (SSR) further underscores the need to maintain strict boundaries between security institutions and civilian administration. SSR argues that professionalizing security institutions requires confining them strictly to their designated functions, ensuring they remain under civilian oversight, and preventing them from entering civilian bureaucracies without adequate structural transitions (Bruneau & Matei, 2013). Countries that successfully implement SSR demonstrate stronger political stability and more robust democratic development precisely because they preserve this institutional separation.

Taken together, these three theoretical frameworks consistently affirm that prohibiting active Polri members from holding civilian positions is not merely a legal decision, it is a structural requirement for a modern democratic state.
 
The Constitutional Meaning of the Constitutional Court’s Decision

The Constitutional Court’s ruling prohibiting active Polri officers from occupying civilian positions affirms the fundamental principles of a constitutional state. In its reasoning, the Court stresses the need to eliminate normative ambiguity that has long enabled the assignment of active officers to civilian posts. The Court states that the requirement to resign or retire is a mandatory constitutional precondition, not a flexible administrative measure. This interpretation clarifies that any exception to this rule constitutes a violation of constitutional principles.

This decision is crucial for safeguarding legal certainty, as mandated by Article 28D(1) of the 1945 Constitution. Legal certainty cannot be realized when certain actors can enter civilian positions without undergoing the same merit-based selection processes required of civil servants (ASN). Historically, the assignment of active officers to civilian roles created systemic inequality within the bureaucracy, as Polri personnel bypassed the competitive, meritocratic selection mechanisms applied to other civil servants. The Constitutional Court ruling restores equality and eliminates this structural discrimination.
The ruling also reinforces consistency with statutory regulations, especially Law No. 2/2002 on the National Police and the Civil Service Law (UU ASN). According to the law, Polri is defined as a law enforcement institution, not an administrative policy-making institution. Civil servants, meanwhile, are defined as policy implementers, not security actors. When active Polri officers occupy civilian administrative positions, a functional contradiction emerges between legal norms and bureaucratic practice. The Constitutional Court’s decision closes the door on this contradiction and maintains the structural clarity of institutional mandates.

Thus, from a constitutional perspective, the Court’s decision serves to protect the integrity of Indonesia’s legal system and ensures that state institutions operate in accordance with their respective constitutional mandates.
 
Structural Implications for Polri: Professionalism, Institutional Identity, and Internal Transformation

The prohibition on active Polri members occupying civilian positions has significant implications for the professionalism and institutional identity of the police force. A professional police institution is characterized by adherence to law, integrity, technical expertise, and political neutrality (Bayley, 2006). When active Polri officers assume civilian roles, they encounter role conflict that weakens Polri’s institutional identity.

Police officers operate within a rigid command hierarchy in which obedience to superiors is a core identity. Civilian administrative positions, however, operate under a different logic, namely deliberation, administrative accountability, and policy neutrality. When an active police officer assumes a civilian post, they inevitably bring the cultural attributes and hierarchical logic of Polri into the civilian bureaucracy, generating structural tension. The Constitutional Court’s ruling removes this potential conflict and allows both institutions to function within their appropriate domains.

Furthermore, the ruling strengthens Polri’s modernization efforts. With no prospect of external administrative rotation, Polri can refocus career development on its core competencies, including investigation, digital forensics, community policing, domestic security management, and professional law enforcement. Democratic countries such as Japan, Canada, and Germany demonstrate that police professionalism thrives when police institutions are insulated from civilian administrative roles (Friedrich & Scharpf, 2019).

The ruling also helps restore public confidence in Polri. The involvement of active officers in civilian roles has long been perceived as an extension of institutional power. By enforcing strict separation, the ruling enables Polri to reestablish itself as a neutral, public-oriented law enforcement institution.
 
Civilian Bureaucratic Governance: Consolidating Meritocracy and Strengthening Accountability

The Constitutional Court’s ruling has profound implications for Indonesia’s civilian bureaucracy. Over the past two decades, the placement of active Polri officers in civilian positions has generated systemic distortions to the principle of meritocracy. Career civil servants (ASN) have long been required to undergo open selection processes, competency assessments, integrity checks, and performance-based evaluations, while active police personnel could bypass these mechanisms through assignment-based appointments.

With this ruling, such distortions come to an end. The ASN merit system is restored, and civilian positions are returned to the domain of administrative actors whose legitimacy derives from technocratic competence. This represents a strengthening of the bureaucratic professionalism essential for modern governance. Additionally, the ruling reduces conflicts of interest that arise when security actors, who possess coercive authority, enter civilian administrative spaces. Such situations often create power asymmetries that undermine coordination between civil servants and security personnel.

The ruling realigns the structure of the civilian bureaucracy with the principles of modern governance, in which administrative functions are performed by civil servants and security functions by the Armed Forces. The result is enhanced accountability, transparency, and effectiveness across government institutions.
 
Civil–Security Relations and the Dangers of Ambiguous Power

Separating coercive authority from civilian administrative authority is a foundational principle of democratic governance. When these powers become intertwined, the result is a structural distortion that threatens accountability, bureaucratic effectiveness, and democratic stability. The Constitutional Court’s decision prohibiting active Polri officers from occupying civilian positions serves as a preventive measure against the dangers posed by ambiguous power.

Civil–security relations are often characterized by tension between the need for stability and the demands of democratic governance. The state relies on security institutions to maintain order, enforce law, and protect citizens. Yet unchecked coercive power can evolve into a political force that challenges the authority of civilian institutions. The Court’s ruling helps preserve this delicate balance by establishing a clear demarcation line between security functions and public administration.

Historically, many countries have struggled to maintain this boundary. Indonesia is a prime example: during the era of dwifungsi ABRI, security forces acted simultaneously as political, administrative, and coercive actors, creating a highly imbalanced institutional architecture. Although the 1998 Reform dismantled this arrangement, the continued placement of active officers in civilian roles throughout the 2010s and early 2020s revealed lingering remnants of the past. The Constitutional Court’s ruling, therefore, serves as a constitutional correction to realign civil–security relations with democratic norms.

In comparative political studies, ambiguity between security and civilian functions is often described as mission creep, a gradual expansion of the security sector into administrative and political domains. When this occurs, civilian institutions lose autonomy, as public decisions become shaped by actors operating under security-driven logics. The Constitutional Court’s ruling aims to prevent this trend and avoid the emergence of creeping militarization within civilian governance.

Ambiguity in civil–security relations also directly affects public trust. Citizens generally expect security institutions to perform protective functions, not administrative or political ones. When security actors enter civilian positions, public perceptions shift, raising fears that state power is no longer appropriately separated and may be vulnerable to coercive dominance. The ruling thus acts as a safeguard, ensuring that Indonesia’s governance remains within democratic parameters, with civilian authority paramount.
 
International Comparison: Patterns in Democratic States’ Governing Security Institutions

International comparative studies offer important empirical insights into why democratic states reject the placement of active security personnel in civilian positions. Mature democracies almost universally enforce strict separation between security institutions and civilian governance, driven by historical learning, constitutional design, and the imperative to avoid concentrated coercive power.
Germany is a model case. The police are positioned as a professional institution operating within legal constraints, and officers seeking civilian administrative roles must first relinquish their police status. This norm arose from Germany’s historical experience with authoritarianism under the Nazi regime, in which the fusion of security and administrative authorities enabled the consolidation of totalitarian power. By barring security actors from civilian roles, Germany ensures that the democratic structure remains resistant to past abuses.

Japan adopts a similarly strict model. Although the Japanese police are technically a civilian institution, the country’s administrative system rigorously separates law enforcement from public administration. Movement of police officers into civilian bureaucratic positions is prohibited because it violates the principle of functional purity. Japan learned from its pre–World War II era, when military and security expansion devastated state governance. Maintaining strict institutional boundaries is seen as essential to preventing a recurrence.

Canada and the United Kingdom follow comparable principles. The police are treated as professional institutions that cannot access administrative or political positions while still active. Neutrality and public trust are at the core of this policy: active police personnel must resign if they wish to enter civilian roles, ensuring that administrative decisions remain free from security-sector influence.

Conversely, countries that fail to maintain this separation often experience democratic stagnation. Pakistan, for example, has a long history of security penetration into civilian bureaucracies, severely weakening the capacity of civilian governance. Brazil during its 1980s–1990s transition also suffered from the presence of military police in civilian roles, which hindered democratic consolidation and trapped the state in a semi-authoritarian bureaucratic structure.

Within this global context, the Constitutional Court’s ruling positions Indonesia alongside modern democratic states that understand the universal necessity of separating security and administrative functions to sustain stable governance.
 
Sociopolitical Dimensions: State Legitimacy, Public Perception, and Democratic Quality

The Constitutional Court’s decision also carries significant sociopolitical implications. One determinant of state legitimacy, according to political science, is public perception of the performance and integrity of security institutions and the civilian bureaucracy. When citizens perceive that state structures are dominated by actors performing dual roles, legitimacy becomes fragile.

The police are the state institution most directly connected to citizens. According to Tyler (2006), public trust in the police strongly influences public confidence in the state itself. When security actors appear to intrude into domains beyond their mandate, such as political or administrative positions, citizens begin to question the institution’s neutrality and integrity. This fosters public concern that coercive power is converging within a single institution, undermining democratic accountability.

National surveys in the past decade show that public trust in Polri fluctuates significantly. Trust increases when Polri performs law enforcement professionally, but falls when the institution is associated with abuses of power or political entanglement. In this context, the Constitutional Court’s ruling functions as an intervention to stabilize institutional legitimacy. By strictly limiting active officers to their core mandate, the state signals that Polri is no longer positioned as a political or administrative actor but as a neutral law enforcement institution.

The ruling also has implications for democratic quality. Democracies require not only fair elections but also clear institutional boundaries. States that allow security forces to enter civilian bureaucracies often face long-term democratic stagnation, institutional politicization, and stalled reforms. Indonesia’s experience with dwifungsi in the ABRI shows how democracy is impeded when the Armed Forces assume civilian roles. The ruling helps ensure that Indonesia avoids repeating this pattern.
Gibson (2013) notes that citizens place greater trust in states where institutions adhere strictly to their designated functions. Clear institutional separation enhances legitimacy, stabilizes politics, and ensures that public authority is not misused. The Constitutional Court’s decision reinforces this logic by establishing a firm boundary between coercive and administrative power.
 
If the Constitutional Court’s Decision Is Ignored: Threats to the Rule of Law and Democratic Stability

To understand the strategic value of the Constitutional Court’s ruling, it is important to consider the alternative scenario: what would happen if the decision were ignored? Allowing violations, whether openly or through regulatory loopholes, could expose Indonesia to several serious risks with direct consequences for governance quality and long-term political stability.

The first risk is the escalation of creeping militarization, a gradual process in which security personnel increasingly occupy civilian spaces and exercise administrative authority. This process has been examined extensively in political science as a form of stealth authoritarianism (Varol, 2015), in which democratic backsliding occurs not through overt coups but through subtle penetration of the bureaucracy by coercive institutions.

The second risk is the erosion of meritocracy within the civil service. When active officers gain non-meritocratic access to civilian positions, career civil servants lose incentives to improve their performance. Bureaucratic professionalism declines because positions are no longer filled based on competence but rather through assignment mechanisms outside the logic of rational bureaucracy. Over time, this imbalance can undermine the entire structure of public administration.

The third risk is institutional delegitimization of Polri. If the police continue entering political and administrative roles, the public may increasingly perceive Polri not as a law enforcement agency but as a political actor. Tyler (2006) argues that without public trust, law enforcement institutions cannot perform their functions effectively. Violating the Court’s ruling could create a reputational crisis with long-term consequences.

The final risk is prolonged political instability. Countries that allow security institutions to dominate civilian roles frequently experience political crises, elite conflict, and democratic stagnation. Levitsky and Way (2010) show that regimes with high security penetration into civilian governance are more vulnerable to authoritarian regression. Ignoring the Constitutional Court’s ruling would expose Indonesia to such systemic risks.
 
Implementation Roadmap: Police Reform, Strengthening the Civil Service, and Regulatory Transformation

To ensure the Constitutional Court’s ruling is effective, Indonesia requires a comprehensive implementation strategy that coordinates interventions across three key sectors: internal reform within Polri, strengthening the civil service, and harmonizing the regulatory framework across ministries and government institutions. Without simultaneous action, implementation will face structural and political obstacles.

Internal reform within Polri is the first foundation. For two decades, aspects of career development within Polri have been shaped by opportunities for rotation into civilian positions. This structure is no longer compatible with the constitutional mandate. Career development must therefore shift toward strengthening professional competencies in law enforcement, investigation, crime prevention, intelligence, and domestic security. Education and training must be redesigned so that officers develop long-term specialization within the police profession, not external administrative ambitions.

Strengthening the civil service (ASN) forms the second pillar. Eliminating access for active Polri officers means civilian institutions must be prepared to fill all administrative positions with trained professionals. This requires improving ASN recruitment systems, expanding national talent pools, and upgrading competency development programs in leadership, policy formulation, digital governance, and organizational management. Strengthening ASN is essential to ensure civilian governance functions effectively without reliance on security personnel.

Regulatory harmonization is the third and final pillar. The assignment of active Polri members to civilian posts over the past decades has been supported by a patchwork of internal regulations, ministerial decrees, and inter-agency agreements. With the Constitutional Court’s ruling, these instruments must be annulled or revised to align with constitutional norms. A national regulatory review is necessary to ensure that no institution retains legal loopholes enabling the assignment of active officers to civilian positions. In modern governance, regulatory coherence is both a legal requirement and a reflection of state capacity.

These three pillars form a coherent implementation strategy that not only satisfies constitutional compliance but also strengthens institutional resilience.
 
Internal Reform of Polri: Professionalism, Institutional Ethics, and Modernization Orientation

The implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decision has implications for the more profound restructuring of Polri. Although police reform has been part of Indonesia’s national agenda since 1998, the process remains incomplete. The prohibition on active officers entering civilian roles reinforces the urgency of internal reforms focused on professionalization, functional purity, and modernization.

Professionalism within Polri requires not only technical capabilities but also adherence to institutional boundaries. Career paths must be designed to build expertise in core policing tasks, such as community security, investigation, forensic analysis, domestic intelligence, cybercrime response, and crisis management. These competencies, central to modern policing, have sometimes been neglected when career prospects included opportunities to occupy civilian roles.

Institutional ethics also require revitalization. Police officers must understand that the distinction between civilian and security institutions is not merely formal but ethical, an essential component of democratic governance. Police education programs must strengthen modules on civil–security relations, rule of law, and ethical governance. Internal oversight mechanisms must ensure that attempts to blur institutional boundaries are sanctioned and prevented from recurring.

At the same time, Polri must accelerate technological modernization amid evolving security threats, including cybercrime, terrorism, digital radicalization, and transnational criminal networks. The Court’s ruling allows Polri to focus fully on this modernization agenda without the distraction of external administrative placements.

Thus, the decision becomes a catalyst for more profound institutional transformation that strengthens Polri’s professional identity.
 
Strengthening the Civil Service and Consolidating Modern Public Administration

The ruling also reshapes the future of Indonesia’s civil service. ASN is the backbone of state administration, responsible for executing public policy with competence, neutrality, and integrity. The prior practice of filling civilian roles with active police personnel disrupted the meritocratic foundations of the civil service. The ruling corrects this, but its success depends on the civil service’s readiness to fill all administrative positions professionally.

Strengthening ASN requires transformation across multiple dimensions. Recruitment must genuinely adhere to merit-based principles. Education and training must prioritize analytical skills, policy formulation, leadership, digital capability, and strategic management. Ethical governance must be reinforced to ensure that civil servants uphold integrity and avoid conflicts of interest.

Modern public administration also demands improved talent management. A national talent pool for strategic positions must be developed. Performance management systems must be strengthened. Digital governance and organizational simplification must be accelerated. In short, the ruling is a gateway to building a healthier administrative system, not the endpoint.
 
Regulatory Harmonization and Cross-Sector Alignment

Effective implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decision requires regulatory harmonization across the government. The diverse regulatory instruments that previously allowed active officers to assume civilian posts must be withdrawn or redesigned. A national task force may be necessary to ensure uniform compliance across ministries, agencies, and regional governments.

Regulatory harmonization is not only a legal necessity but a marker of state governance maturity. States with coherent regulatory frameworks tend to have more stable, efficient, and transparent bureaucracies.
 
Long-Term Consequences for Democracy and Institutional Stability

The Constitutional Court’s ruling will shape Indonesia’s democracy in the long term. By closing the door to coercive actors entering administrative roles, the ruling prevents the concentration of coercive power in civilian institutions, a known precursor to authoritarian decline.

The ruling will strengthen institutional stability by ensuring that each institution performs its designated function. Polri can deepen its professional capacity, the civil service can develop without unhealthy competition, and the public can trust that the state’s coercive instruments are not being appropriated for political or administrative control.

This places Indonesia on a trajectory aligned with mature democracies, where institutional clarity is a hallmark of democratic resilience.
 
Synthesis and Conclusion

The Constitutional Court’s 2025 decision prohibiting active Polri personnel from holding civilian positions marks a monumental milestone in Indonesia’s democratic trajectory. It not only addresses legal and administrative problems but strengthens the foundations of the rule of law, clarifies civil–security relations, enhances police professionalism, and improves the quality of public administration.

Academic analysis shows that the ruling aligns with civil–security relations theory, modern bureaucracy theory, and security sector reform. It also aligns with international practice, in which democratic states strictly separate security and administrative functions to prevent the concentration of coercive power.

The ruling’s impact includes the purification of police functions, the restoration of ASN meritocracy, the enhancement of public trust, and the reinforcement of institutional stability. Its implementation requires internal police reform, strengthening of the civil service, and nationwide regulatory harmonization.

Thus, the Constitutional Court’s decision is not merely a solution to administrative irregularities; it is a strategic foundation for reinforcing Indonesia’s democratic structure, ensuring healthy civil–security relations, and guiding the nation toward a modern constitutional state grounded in integrity and institutional resilience.
 
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