SEMARANG – The Faculty of Law of Diponegoro University (UNDIP) continued to improve the quality of learning for its students through the Visiting Lecturer/Professor Program. On this occasion, Faculty of Law Undip presented speakers from the Netherlands, namely Prof. Dr. Maartje Van der Woude from Leiden Law School, Universiteit Leiden (Leiden University), the Netherlands.
The event, which was packaged through public lectures, was held virtually through Zoom meeting platform with a theme “Deliberative Law Making and the Politicization and Mediatization of Criminal Justice”. In this forum, Prof. Maartje hoped the UNDIP academic community to encourage the making of criminal laws that are adaptive to social changes in society, so that fundamental values will be protected.
According to her, criminal laws that are adaptive to social change have implications for the effect of social change on criminal justice because society needs criminal laws that are able to protect existing fundamental values. A community decides to enforce its internal norms through criminal sanctions in order to preserve its integrity and identity. “This is why criminal policies and laws are so important for self-representation of the community and its projection to the outside world,” said Prof. Maartje when expressing her opinion at the event which was held on Wednesday (3/11/2021).
She added that the law-making process proposed by legislators paid very little attention to human rights, police resources, the general criminal justice system, and the relationship between victims and perpetrators. It has the potential for undesirable things to happen as a consequence.
The ideal legal product should be sufficient to deal with the problem, and can be an expressive or symbolic function that is assumed from the law that is made. She emphasized that in the process of drafting legislation, it is obligatory to consider the effects, benefits and risks after the policy is issued, so that the deliberation process carried out by legislators must have an impact on collective decisions or social outcomes.
“I hope that UNDIP Law students always think logically and critically and dare to express opinions according to facts and data. Students must use their conscience in responding to injustice on legal issues that develop in society,” said Prof. Maartje who claimed to be very happy and grateful for the invitation given by the leadership of Faculty of Law UNDIP as a speaker at this event.
Meanwhile, the Dean of Faculty of Law UNDIP, Prof. Dr. Retno Saraswati, S.H., M.Hum said that the Visiting Lecturer Program was an excellent academic activity that represented the commitment of the Faculty of Law, in order to improve and enrich the quality of students in various academic fields, especially in research, teaching, and innovation. The implementation of this program is carried out by inviting foreign lecturers and or researchers from universities abroad to be partners with the Faculty of Law Undip.
“This program is expected to develop collaboration in the field of collaborative teaching and research with partner universities abroad. We also hope that this scientific activity can strengthen and increase cooperation between Leiden Law School and the Faculty of Law of Diponegoro University,” said Prof. Retno.
The virtual general lecture activity which lasted approximately 60 minutes was guided by Dr. Adya Paramita Prabandari S.H., M.L.I., M.H. (Associate Professor and Head of the International Office at Faculty of Law Undip) as moderator and Josephine Rachelle (Chair of International Law Student Association of Faculty of Law Undip) as Master of Ceremony.
In her opportunity, Dr. Adya Paramita Prabandari expressed her gratitude for the willingness of the resource persons and participants who had attended this scientific activity. The closing session of the event was filled with a group photo between the resource persons, participants and the committee which was coordinated directly by the Master of Ceremony. (PR team)
