Between 8th and 10th of October 2012, the first HSF workshop on “Legislation and legal drafting processes” in cooperation with ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) took place in Jakarta, Indonesia. The workshop aimed to underline the different legislative environments in AIPA member states and to efficiently enhance the inherent legal processes including preparatory work, process transparency and normative constitutional consistency. The inception workshop marked a starting point of a series of Hanns Seidel Foundation events in 2012 and 2013 involving legislation and legal drafting processes to streamline such approaches within AIPA and thereby contribute to the successful implementation of a people centered ASEAN Community by 2015.

The workshop was attended by delegations from Brunei Darussalam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Republic of the Union Myanmar and the Republic of Indonesia including seven Members of Parliament (MP), representatives from the AIPA Secretariat Jakarta and various legal drafters and staffs. The outstanding German legal scholars, Dr. Henning Glaser and his assistant Dr. Duc Quang Ly, from the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance were acquired to conduct the three day workshop in Jakarta. The content was accommodated for a very heterogenic group of participants and enabled all participants to actively take part in the discussions and share and contribute thoughts and experiences. The methodological approach of the workshop was a balanced combination of group work, interactive communication and seminar lecture which created active participation and lively discussions among participants. Due to the overall successful outcome of the inception event and the many requests from participants, Hanns Seidel Foundation Indonesia currently works on a follow up workshop to be held later this year!

The cooperation between HSF and AIPA is part of a two year capacity development program jointly executed by HSF Indonesia alongside Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. Its main objectives are to strengthen the parliamentarian normative and control functions of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly and foster cooperation and exchange between AIPA member states, the AIPA Secretariat and ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta.