Legal Literacy - Recently, the public sphere has been colored again by a fairly serious legal debate regarding the placement of members of the Indonesian National Police (Polri) in civil positions. This issue is not merely a matter of personnel administration, but touches the heart of the national legal system related to the hierarchy of laws and regulations. Prof. Mahfud MD, a constitutional law expert and former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, firmly reminded that the arrangement of civil positions for the Police should not be done through Police Regulations (Perpol) or even Government Regulations (PP), but must be regulated at the level of Law. This warning is important because it concerns a fundamental principle in law, namely lex superior derogat legi inferior that regulations of higher standing override lower regulations. When this principle is ignored, the law is no longer an instrument of certainty, but a source of noise.

Hierarchy of Laws and Regulations and the Lex Superior Principle

In the Indonesian legal system, the hierarchy of laws and regulations has been affirmed in Law Number 12 of 2011 concerning the Establishment of Laws and Regulations. The order is clear that the Law is far above Government Regulations, let alone Institutional Regulations such as Perpol. Consequently, the subject matter that is fundamental, strategic, and concerns the…