Circular Letters as Instruments for Creating New Norms in Indonesian Public Procurement: A Review of LKPP Circular Letters Nos. 5 and 8 of 2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58524/42zfyx49Keywords:
Administrative law, Circular letters, LKPP, Public procurement, Regulatory hierarchyAbstract
Circular Letters Nos. 5 and 8 of 2024 issued by Indonesia’s National Public Procurement Agency (LKPP) were issued to provide guidance on corruption prevention in government procurement. Because circular letters are not listed in the hierarchy of legislation under Article 7 of Law No. 12 of 2011, questions arise when their operative provisions appear to create obligations, decision criteria, sanction grounds, or allocations of authority beyond existing procurement regulations. This study examines the legal character of selected provisions in the two circular letters. Using normative legal research with statutory, conceptual, and analytical approaches, the study applies a clause-level doctrinal analysis by comparing the selected operative provisions with the procurement regulations applicable at the time of issuance and classifying them as restatements, interpretations, operational directions, or potentially norm-creating provisions. The analysis identifies potentially norm-creating effects concerning review of the General Procurement Plan without clear confirmation of the final authority of the Budget User or duly authorized Proxy Budget User, the linkage between a single brand and a single capable business actor, the shortest supply chain criterion, price preference in negotiated e-purchasing, mandatory disclosure of evaluation worksheets without adequate safeguards for protected information, and the possible treatment of failure to repay audit-identified overpayments as an independent ground for blacklisting. By contrast, subcontractor-payment controls and mini competition have prior regulatory foundations. The findings show that the principal legal issue is not LKPP’s regulatory competence in general, but the compatibility between the substance and legal effects of particular provisions and the circular-letter form used to express them. The study contributes a clause-level framework for distinguishing explanatory guidance grounded in existing law from provisions requiring a prescribed regulatory form and sufficient legal basis.
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