Legal reconstruction of dual authority: The mayor’s ex-officio role in Batam City governance
Ella Septri Armila Nasution, Istislam, Dhiana Puspitawati & Riana Susmayanti
Abstract
Batam City is a national strategic area with the status of a Free Trade Zone and Free Port, managed under the Batam Development Authority (BP Batam). The dualism of authority between the Batam City Government and BP Batam creates overlapping functions, licensing delays, and investment barriers. To address this issue, Government Regulation Number 62 of 2019 was issued, establishing an ex-officio policy where the Mayor of Batam simultaneously serves as Head of BP Batam. This research uses a normative juridical method with statutory, conceptual, legal philosophy, and comparative approaches to analyze the ex-officio policy from the perspective of General Principles of Good Governance (AUPB) and rule of law principles. The research findings show that this policy effectively improves coordination, accelerates services, and promotes economic growth, but still leaves legal issues including normative gaps regarding authority limits, accountability mechanisms, potential conflicts of interest, and minimal public participation. Therefore, this research recommends regulatory reconstruction through Government Regulation that clearly distinguishes the authorities of the City Government and BP Batam, establishes legally binding coordination procedures, and strengthens oversight mechanisms and community participation. These efforts are expected to create effective and accountable institutional governance in accordance with constitutional principles.
Keywords
ex officio, mayor of Batam, Batam Authority, general principles of good governance, legal policy
Author information & Contribution
Ella Septri Armila Nasution. Corresponding author. Faculty of Law, Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia. Email: ellaseptri@student.ub.ac.id
Istislam. Faculty of Law, Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia. Email: ist@ub.ac.id
Dhiana Puspitawati. Faculty of Law, Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia. Email: dhiana@ub.ac.id
Riana Susmayanti. Faculty of Law, Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia. Email: r.susmayanti@ub.ac.id
"All authors equally contributed to the conception, design, preparation, data gathering and analysis, and writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was not supported by any funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not Applicable.
AI Declaration
AI tools were not used in writing this paper.
Notes
Acknowledgement
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Cite this article:
Nasution, E. S. A., Istislam, Dhiana Puspitawati, D., & Susmayanti, R. (2025). Political reconstruction of the legal regulation of the dual authority of the mayor as ex-officio in the City of Batam. International Review of Social Sciences Research, 5(3), 270-288. https://doi.org/10.53378/irssr.353265
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