DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21776/ub.blj.2018.005.02.05 | 209 

Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and Juridical 

Examination 
 

Donna Okthalia Setiabudhi1, Toar Neman Palilingan2,  

Jeany Anita Kermite3 

 
1 Faculty of Law, Sam Ratulangi University 

Email: donna_setiabudhi@yahoo.com  

 
2 Faculty of Law, Sam Ratulangi University 

Email: palilingann@gmail.com  

 
3 Faculty of Law, Sam Ratulangi University 

Email: jeankermite@yahoo.com 
 

Submitted : 2018-09-14 | Accepted : 2018-10-26 

 

 

Abstract: Manado is a city that has a large population, high population mobility and 

activities in all fields that are increasingly complex. However, actually it does not have a legal 

product that regulates population administration technically. This paper aims to analyse the 

population administration policies in the city of Manado and propose an ideal policy that can 

be pursued to establish an appropriate population administration service in this region. The 

research is a socio-juridical research. The method used is descriptive by giving a systematic, 

factual and accurate description of the issues of research. 

The results indicated that population administration services in the city of Manado were 

still minimal and not optimal because there were no local regulations which accommodate all 

the typical conditions of communities. The lack of human resources both in quality and quantity 

in providing the population administration service to the community and the lack of attention 

the public to the importance of population administration for their lives, have made 

inappropriate populatuion administration service. Thus, it is argued that the existence of local 

regulations are needed to regulate population administration which can accommodate the 

conditions of the communities in Manado and can be a reference for the implementers in 

providing optimal services to the community. 

 

Keywords: administrative law, public policy, population administration 

 

I. INTRODUCTION 

At this time, public services cannot be 

separated from human life because it is very 

needed and closely related to the life of 

peoples. In practice, several public service 

activities have certain characteristics and 

divided into several types of services and 

their implementation. It is argued that 

although there are existing laws in the 

privacy on personal data, however, those 

mailto:donna_setiabudhi@yahoo.com
mailto:palilingann@gmail.com
mailto:jeankermite@yahoo.com


Brawijaya Law Journal Vol.5 No 2 (2018)   The Role of State in Contemporary Legal Development 

 210 | Setiabudhi, Palilingan, Kermite - Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and… 

legal frameworks still developed in very 

sectoral nature.1 Hence, the government as a 

public service provider and needed by the 

community must be responsible and continue 

to strive to provide the best service for the 

improvement of public services. 

One of several services by the local 

government is population administration 

services. This is a very important role in 

development, where in the population 

administration system can be known about 

population data and information that is 

appropriate to the situation of the population 

and about the condition of their residential 

area.2 The event of population requires valid 

evidence to be administered and recorded in 

accordance with the provisions of the 

legislation. Act No. 24 of 2013 concerning 

Population Administration affirms that the 

population administration in Indonesia will 

be performed through the application of the 

Population Administration Information 

System. 

Basically, the population administra-

tion is closely related to the fulfillment of 

human rights because every person in the 

field of population has a right without 

discrimination. So it can be said that the 

implementation of an orderly population 

administration will support the realization of 

good governance, optimize democratization 

and protect human rights in order to improve 

the welfare of society. Achieving these 

conditions is not easy, because it requires 

complex prerequisites such as legal tools, 

institutional stability, apparatus capability, 

regularity of management, availability of 

financing up to public awareness support. 

                                                 
1  Rosadi, S.D, ‘Protecting Privacy on Personal Data 

in Digital Economic Era: Legal Framework in 

Indonesia’ (2018) 5 1 Brawijaya Law Journal, 143 

- 157 

One of the strategic factors that must be 

organized and prepared to serve and effective 

is a legal basis and can guarantee protection 

and comfort for the population to obtain legal 

certainty domiciled in the territory of the 

Republic of Indonesia in accessing their 

rights as citizens and as Indonesian. 

Legislation required must not be 

discriminatory, clear (not multi-interpre-

tative), not-contradictory (should be syner-

gistic) with other laws and regulations in 

public services, so that it can be used as an 

instrument of population control, and can 

function to encourage the realization of a 

modern population administration services 

with good governance and clean government. 

A form of legal product needed is a local 

regulation. 

Manado is a city that has a large 

population, high population mobility and 

activities in all fields that are increasingly 

complex but it does not yet have a legal 

product that regulates the population 

administration technically, therefore the 

author is interested in reviewing the 

population administration policies in the city 

of Manado and propose an ideal policy that 

can be pursued to establish an appropriate 

population administration service in this 

region.  

 

II. LEGAL MATERIALS AND METHODS 

The research is a socio-juridical 

research. The method used is descriptive 

method by giving a systematic, factual and 

accurate description of the research issue. It 

was conducted in the city of Manado by 

considering that Manado until now there is 

no local regulation on population administra-

2  Hendratno, E. T., & Fitriati, R, ‘The Study of 

Indonesia’s Readiness To Cope With 

Demographic Bonus: A Review Of Population 

Law’ (2015) 30 3 Journal of Indonesian Economy 

and Business, 195-219. 



Brawijaya Law Journal Vol.5 No 2 (2018)   The Role of State in Contemporary Legal Development 

Setiabudhi, Palilingan, Kermite - Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and… | 211 

tion. The data was analyzed through quali-

tative analysis. This analysis be based on the 

theoretical as a key of analysis in explaining 

the phenomenon of this research. 

 

III.  RESULT AND DISCUSSION 

Integrated Governance and Population 

Administration Policy  

Policy philosophy appears in a 

pluralistic society like Indonesia. The 

community consists of several interest 

groups and the government is considered as a 

unifier and has a strong control from all 

elements of the interest group into an 

integrated force. Therefore, to manage a 

pluralistic society, managerial ability is 

needed to manage conflicts that may arise 

due to differences in ethnic, religious, racial, 

and group backgrounds into useful some-

thing for society or nation. One of the tips for 

managing a pluralistic process certainly 

requires a policy in accordance with the 

wishes of the community and government.3 

The policy is usually used in choosing 

and presenting the most important choices to 

be made, both in the life of government and 

private organizations. The policy is free from 

the connotations or nuances that are included 

in political words which are often believed to 

have a partial notion.4 A policy of decision 

that applies and characterized by consistent 

and repetitive behavior, both from those who 

make it and those who obey it (those affected 

by the policy). While public policy is a series 

of choices that are interconnected (including 

decisions that do not act) made by govern-

ment agencies and officials. 

                                                 
3  Musanef, Sistem Pemerintahan Indonesia 

(Gunung Agung : Jakarta, 1985),  54 
4  Ibid 
5  E. Koswara, Otonomi Daerah, Untuk Demokrasi 

dan Kemandirian Rakyat (Yayasan Pariba: Jakarta, 

2001) 92 

Problems regarding policy are topics 

that are currently hotly discussed in both 

industrial and developing countries. Policy 

implementation is not just a mechanism for 

translating policy objectives into technical 

and routine procedures but also involves 

various other factors, namely resources, 

relations between organizational units, the 

level of bureaucracy to certain political 

groups who may not approve the policies that 

have been established.5 

This view does not mention the most 

important factor of a policy that should be a 

reference to determine whether a policy is 

implemented or not. The intended factor is 

the people or society where the policy will be 

implemented. Grindle 6 argues that attempts 

to explain this diver have led to the 

realization that implementation, even when 

successful, involves for more than a 

mechanical translation of goals into routine 

procedures, it involves fundamental question 

about conflict, decision making, and who 

gets what in a society. 

Grindle also stated 2 (two) things that 

affecting the effectiveness of a policy, 

namely:7 The first, content of policy which 

contains interest affected, type of benefits, 

extend of change environed, site of decision 

making, program implementors, resourced 

committed; The second, context of 

implementation contains power, interest, 

regime characteristic, compliance and res-

ponsiveness. 

In the implementation of decentra-

lization, Rondinell and Cheema8 suggests the 

relationship of factors that influence the 

implementation of decentralization policy, 

6  Ibid, 93 
7  Ibid 
8  Ibid 95 



Brawijaya Law Journal Vol.5 No 2 (2018)   The Role of State in Contemporary Legal Development 

 212 | Setiabudhi, Palilingan, Kermite - Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and… 

namely 1) The compliance approach; an 

implementation is considered only a 

technical and routine problem so that the 

process of implementation does not contain 

political elements whose plans have been 

predetermined by the leaders political. 2) The 

political approach; that views administration 

as an integral part that is inseparable from the 

process of determining the policy in which 

the policy is changed, re-formulated even the 

large burden in the process of implementa-

tion. 

In several notions of authority as 

mentioned above, the author concludes that 

authority has a different notion with 

competence. 9  Authority is a formal power 

that comes from the law, while competence 

is a specification of authority, meaning 

whoever (legal subject) is given authority by 

law, then authorized to do something in the 

authority. 

In the concept of population 

administration, the population has the 

meaning of people who live in the area or 

people who are legally entitled to live in the 

area.10 Administration includes activities that 

must be conducted by executive officers in an 

organization, serves to regulate, and 

completing collaborative efforts of a group of 

people who are deliberately gathered to 

achieve certain goals. The notion of 

administration in a narrow and broad sense, 

namely:11 

a. In narrow meaning: comes from the 

word Administratie (Dutch), which 

includes note or registry, corres-

pondence, minor bookkeeping, typing, 

agenda etc, which is clerical work. Thus, 

                                                 
9  I. Fachruddin, Pengawasan Peradilan 

Administrasi Terhadap Tindakan Pemerintah 

(Alumni, Bandung, 2014) 4 
10  Bappenas, Pembangunan Kependudukan 

Keluarga Kecil Berkualitas serta Pemuda dan 

Olah  Raga. (Jakarta2006) 

it is a small part of the activities of the 

administration. 

b. In broad meaning: comes from the word 

Administration (English), is a series of 

activities or processes of cooperative 

activities for a group of people to 

achieve certain goals efficiently 

 

The essence of population administra-

tion is the recognition of State to the public 

rights (domicile, relocation) and civil rights 

(12 important sectors) of the population in 

the field of population administration. The 

population adminis-tration is directed to 

fulfill the human rights of every person in the 

field of population administration without 

discrimination through professional public 

services. Population registration is done by 

recording population data, recording based 

on the reporting of population events and 

issuing population documents. 

 

The Examination of Empirical and 

Juridical to the Policy of Population 

Administration 

Population administration is a very 

important issue because it is in touch with all 

life activities in Indonesia. Almost all aspects 

of community life require population 

administration, even to register a mobile card 

needed a population administration. The 

issue of population, since independence of 

Indonesia has experienced problems because 

there is no administrative link between one 

and other interests even in ancient times a 

citizen could have a National Identity Card 

more than one place because there was no 

connection between one and another region. 

11 S.A. Wahab, Analisis Kebijaksanaan: Dari 

Formulasi ke Implementasi Kebijaksanaan 

Negara. Jakarta : Bumi Aksara,2005), 32 



Brawijaya Law Journal Vol.5 No 2 (2018)   The Role of State in Contemporary Legal Development 

Setiabudhi, Palilingan, Kermite - Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and… | 213 

It has caused many difficulties in the 

administration of the State and government, 

for example in law enforcement. 

Civil registration is the right of every 

citizen to obtaining an authentic deed from a 

state official. An example is a birth certificate. 

The child is born without a birth certificate 

will have difficulties when enters education. 

Likewise, in marriage, death and child status. 

Many benefits bring legal consequences for a 

person. A marriage certificate issued by a 

civil registry official, has a very big meaning 

in the future, when something happens. For 

example, to determining the heirs or can give 

directions to the court where he filed for 

divorce and others that are unwittingly 

important to the life of person. 

The urgency of population 

administration be a reason the government to 

issues Act No. 24 of 2013 concerning 

Population Administration. Various facilities 

were provided by this law, the ease in the 

administering of population documents and 

the ease in civil registry based on Act No. 23 

of 2013, among others: 

a. The validity of electronic identity card 

that initially 5 (five) years changed 

become lifetime as along there is no 

change of data in the identity card.  

Thus, the population must not difficult 

extending the validity of their card. 

b. The printing of document/electronic 

identity card. Since the implementation 

of electronic identity card recording in 

mass, the printing is carried out by the 

Ministry of Domestic Affairs that 

centered in Jakarta. Many people feel 

difficult to confirm if there is a mistake 

or occur delay. As a consequence, 

many peoples have inappropriate 

identity card. To prevent the difficulty 

in correcting the mistake of data in the 

identity card, it was planned in quarter 

III 2014 the printing of document will 

be delivered to the region.  The local 

government through the Population 

and Civil Registry Offices at region 

level is given authority to print the 

electronic identity card. 

c. The issuance of birth certificate whose 

reporting exceed 1-year period. Other 

easiness in administer the document in 

the Population and Civil Registry 

Office related to the issuance of birth 

certificate whose reporting exceed 1-

year period.  Initially, the issuance 

requires the decision of State Court, it 

changed by the Decision of the 

Population and Civil Registry Office at 

region level.  It is in line with the 

decision of Constitution Supreme dated 

30 April 2013. 

d. The issuance of Civil registry 

certificate.  Before Act No.23 of 2006 

is amended, the recording and issuance 

of the civil registry certificate is based 

on the principle where an event occur.  

With the new law the principle is 

amended, namely the principle in the 

place of domicile of the population. 

This is expected to encourage the 

public to take care of population and 

civil registration documents; 

e. Article 44 of this law regulates the 

reporting of death. The point is that the 

reporting of death records which were 

originally the obligation of the 

population was changed to the 

obligation of the head of the 

environment or another name to report 

every death of his citizens to the 

implementing agency (the Population 

and Civil Registry Office). With this 

policy, it is expected that the death 

record will increase significantly. 

Because all this time public awareness 

to report and/or make death certificates 

is still relatively low; and 



Brawijaya Law Journal Vol.5 No 2 (2018)   The Role of State in Contemporary Legal Development 

 214 | Setiabudhi, Palilingan, Kermite - Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and… 

f. The active of officers. The active 

system which was originally required 

by the population was changed to an 

active standard required by the 

government through officers. This 

means that the officer who serves the 

population administration affairs must 

be proactive to serve the population. 

That is why local governments must 

actively carry out population 

administration services. 

 

Above all, various facilities in the law 

will be effective if further regulated by local 

regulations considering that local regulations 

are rules established in the framework of the 

implementation of local autonomy and with 

this local regulation it is hoped that 

population services can be carried out in line 

with the conditions of each local community 

but thus the city of Manado apparently did 

not yet have local regulations on population 

administration. The absence of this local 

regulation is clearly very influential in the 

implementation of population administration 

services because it is based on the law with 

the nature of regulation that is still abstract. 

The problem of population 

administration in Indonesia is a very 

important role in development, where from 

the population administration system can be 

known about population data and 

information that is appropriate to the 

situation of the population and the condition 

of the area where the population lives.12 The 

Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia 

based on Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution 

of the Republic of Indonesia is essentially 

obliged to provide protection and recognition 

of the determination of the personal status 

and legal status of each population and 

                                                 
12  A Mason, ‘Population change and economic 

development: What have we learned from the East 

important event experienced by residents 

who are inside and or outside the territory the 

Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. 

Legal status is given to provide guarantees to 

residents to obtain justice. Justice is the goal 

of law enforcement efforts. 

In addition, to the formation of local 

regulations, efforts to optimize population 

administration services in the city of Manado 

must be able to overcome the obstacles that 

occur. The government officials in the city of 

Manado in increasing orderly population 

administration must take some concrete steps. 

This is done to maximize the quality of 

services provided by the village official 

which is expected to be able to encourage the 

public to care more about the importance of 

orderly population administration. 

As described above, efforts are 

expected to increase orderly population 

administration in the city of Manado. But 

some things often become obstacles to 

creating quality population administration 

services. Some obstacles such as: 

a. The lack of community attendance in 

participating in any counseling carried 

out by village officials. The number of 

people attendance is influenced by the 

apathy of the community, the busyness 

of the daily routine of the communities, 

lack of socialization and minimal level 

of interaction. 

b. A narrow service room so people have to 

wait outside the room and cause 

discomfort. 

c. The minimum quantity of employees in 

serving the community causes queues 

and processes that tend to be slow. 

d. The community has not fully understood 

the completeness of the document file 

Asia experience?’ (2003) 1 1 Applied Population 

and Policy,  3-14. 



Brawijaya Law Journal Vol.5 No 2 (2018)   The Role of State in Contemporary Legal Development 

Setiabudhi, Palilingan, Kermite - Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and… | 215 

which is a condition in the service 

process for population administration. 

To overcome these obstacles, the 

government of Manado needs to do several 

things, including: 

a. Always intense to conduct socialization 

and counseling. For this reason, the 

village office distributes invitation to the 

head of the neighborhood and 

community leaders so that the peoples 

were enthusiastic about attending the 

counseling in the village. 

b. Renovating the service room so that it is 

wider and more comfortable. The 

service room is also equipped with air 

conditioning and a front desk. 

c. Increase the number of employees in 

charge of serving the community to 

avoid long queues. 

d. Besides the socialization and counseling 

held by the village office, the head and 

community leaders also took part in 

informing or giving understanding about 

the completeness of the document file. 

 

It presents that in the population 

administration service in the city of Manado, 

there is no optimal service system because 

there is no substance in the local law that 

governs, the implementation of the duties of 

local government officials in population 

problems is not yet clear and community 

support is not optimal so needs issues the 

local regulations immediately that fulfill the 

requirements by taking into account the 

principles of the establishment of good local 

regulations in order to support optimization 

in implementation. 

 

IV.  CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 

In Manado, the population administra-

tion services are still not optimal because 

there are no local regulations issued or 

established to accommodate all the unique 

conditions of communities. The lack of 

human resources both in quality and quantity 

in providing the population administration 

service to the community and the lack of 

attention the public to the importance of 

population administration for their lives, 

have made inappropriate populatuion 

administration service. Thus, it is 

recommended to have local regulations to 

regulate population administration which can 

accommodate the conditions of the 

communities in Manado and can be a 

reference for the implementers in providing 

optimal services to the community. 

 

REFERENCES 

 

Books 

Bappenas, Pembangunan Kependudukan 

Keluarga Kecil Berkualitas serta 

Pemuda dan Olah  Raga (Jakarta: 

Bappenas, 2006) 

Fachruddin, I, Pengawasan Peradilan 

Administrasi Terhadap Tindakan 

Pemerintah (Alumni, Bandung, 2004) 

Koswara, E.,  Otonomi Daerah, Untuk 

Demokrasi dan Kemandirian Rakyat 

(Yayasan Pariba: Jakarta, 2001) 

Musanef, Sistem Pemerintahan Indonesia 

(Gunung Agung : Jakarta, 1985) 

Wahab, S.A., Analisis Kebijaksanaan: Dari 

Formulasi ke Implementasi 

Kebijaksanaan Negara. (Bumi Aksara: 

Jakarta, 2005) 

 

Journal Articles 

Hendratno, E. T., & Fitriati, R ‘The Study of 

Indonesia’s Readiness To Cope With 

Demographic Bonus: A Review Of 

Population Law’ (2015) 30 3 Journal of 

Indonesian Economy and Business 

Mason, A. ‘Population change and economic 

development: What have we learned 



Brawijaya Law Journal Vol.5 No 2 (2018)   The Role of State in Contemporary Legal Development 

 216 | Setiabudhi, Palilingan, Kermite - Population Administration Policy: An Empirical and… 

from the East Asia experience?’ (2003) 

1 1 Applied Population and Policy 

Rosadi, S.D. ‘ Protecting Privacy on Personal 

Data in Digital Economic Era: Legal 

Framework in Indonesia’ (2018) 5 1 

Brawijaya Law Journal