National control over local law making in Indonesia

Indonesia’s post-Soeharto decentralisation experiment was put into action from 2001. Since then, local governments have enjoyed greatly expanded power to devise policy and enact ‘regional regulations’ (peraturan daerah, commonly abbreviated to Perda), issuing many thousands of them.1 Legally speaking, however, the central government has retained almost unbridled control over regional law making: the central government can override or annul almost any Perda.