President Joko Widodo announced a public health emergency at the end of March 2020. This policy demonstrates denial, too late and limited in responding to the spread of Covid-19. On the other hand, the state security approach during the pandemic has pressured civil liberties, especially criticisms against government policies. This phenomenon is not a new development in Indonesia whereby attacks on freedom of expression and academic freedom are common. This article analyses how the COVID-19 health emergency situation is handled by the government from the perspective of human rights law standards and the rule of law. This article argues the Indonesian COVID-19 emergency law violates many guarantees of legal protection under the rule of law standard. It is apparent how the issue of human rights has not yet become an effective strategy or approach in this non-natural disaster emergency situation.

Based on field research at numerous campuses, this article unravels teaching practices and legal research at Indonesia's law schools. This article is not aimed to explain the debates on normative and empirical in legal research, but it explains why such debates had been vehemently becoming unresolved and as challenge in improving interdisciplinary approach. This article shows finding that vehement debates happen since both tradition legal research apply them seem like religious doctrine.

This article addresses the role of legal research methodologies in the development of legal science and the creation of social change in Indonesia. Based on fieldwork conducted at Indonesian law schools between 2014 and 2016, this article reveals that legal research methods taught in Indonesia are starkly divided into normative-juridical and empirical-juridical approaches. Misunderstandings between adherents of these different schools of thought pose significant obstacles to the development of interdisciplinary approaches to law that span or go beyond the divide. Methodological conflicts resulting in the absence of socio-legal approaches in Indonesian law schools, coupled with outdated and limited source materials, limit the study of comparative law in Indonesia to the mere comparison of statutes and rules shorn of socio-political context. They also fail to instill awareness of the importance of considering social – on top of legal – impact in the context of Indonesia's complex and pluralist legal system.

This paper explores the similarities and differences in Indonesia and Canada regarding the constitutionally protected freedom of expression. While one may expect that both countries do not have much in common from a general standpoint, both do have several similarities in their approach to the interpretation and application of that freedom. The exercise of freedom of expression is also examined through the spectrum of jurisprudential examples from both countries, more specifically in the context of ‘hate speech’, ‘artistic expression’ and ‘language expression’.In addition, the social reality of both countries underlying the freedom of expression is uncovered. Further, the limitations imposed in both countries on that fundamental freedom are also discussed. Learning from the exercise that consisted in this paper to compare relevant laws of two countries, and despite the differences between their respective legal traditions, this study argues that freedom of expression, in two different countries such as Indonesia and Canada, can play a more effective role in a society with a multicultural character that complies with the rule of law.

ABSTRACT ABSTRACTIndonesia is no longer an authoritarian country, and no longer centralized government. Decentralization processes since 1999 has changed local democratization in a wider participation. Nevertheless, the culture of openness and incorrupt have been far from the more ideal situation. Bribery, corruption and unresponsive public services have been continuously and more systematic taking place. In that context, the Government of Indonesia enacted Law No. 14 of 2008 concerning Public Information Openness (KeterbukaanInformasiPublik or called PIO Law), which is implemented since 30 April 2010. The PIO law is believed to contribute to the better decentralization processes and economic-political democratization at local level. Nevertheless, although right to access information was guaranteed by law, but it has been applied in limited process. Such situation actually gives clear evidence that decentralized Indonesia should be questioned, especially in terms of how the right to access information has been applied in a meaningful way after the enactment PIO Law in 2008 and, what the dominant problems in implementing right to access information are. This article will elaborate the norms and practices of PIO Law by using the rule of law point of view. Keywords: Right to Access Information, Decentralization, Rule Of Law And Human Rights ABSTRAK ABSTRAK ABSTRAK ABSTRAK ABSTRAK Indonesia sudah tidak menjadi negara yang otoriter lagi, dan pemerintahannya tidak lagi terpusat. Proses desentralisasi sejak 1999 telah merubah demokratisasi lokal kedalam partisipasi yang lebih luas.Namun demikian,