Earlier this year, Miss Megawati's government and parliament got into a fight over a proposed free-trade zone on Batam island. The cabinet had a design of its own for the zone, but parliament made big changes to it. Enraged ministers flatly refused to implement the new law, declaring it impractical. Livid parliamentarians accused the government of wilfully undermining the constitution. Into this fray stepped Jimly Asshiddi-qie, the head of Indonesia's year-old Constitutional Court. He suggested to Rini Su-wandi, then minister of trade, that the government bring its complaint to the court. The idea, he says, did not seem to have occurred to Miss Rini. Indonesia's political institutions have changed dramatically in the past five years-so much so that most Indonesian officials are still trying to discover how the new set-up is supposed to work. The original constitution, drawn up in 1945, had only 71 clauses. Since 1999, a series of amendments has expanded it to 199 clauses. Confusion is inevitable. Mr Ass-hiddiqie points out that there are roughly 50 inconsistencies within the constitution itself. One article, for example, proclaims unrestricted freedom of speech; the next suggests it can be curtailed. Indonesia's vast array of lesser laws, decrees and official instructions doubtless contain many more ambiguous provisions.
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