LEGAL scholars have been discussing two important roles of law: social control and social engineering. As a social control, law is designed and introduced to control the behaviours of society members in accordance with particular values and norms agreed upon by the community. In this context, the law has a power to sanction and punish the unlawful members of society. As a social engineering, law is intended to create an ideal society in accordance with, again, particular values and norms agreed upon by the community. Hence, law is not for law. Law is created to serve human beings. Law is introduced for the well-being of the society members. As the law is for human, and human’s situations and problems are changing, then law also needs to change and adapt to the context of the times. Here, the concept of legal reform is a key. Every society, including the Indonesian society, sometimes needs to reform the law to make it more relevant and suitable for the needs of the society.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15294/jils.v2i02

Published: 2017-11-27