Proeve-Oppenheim

Properties2
tagsdocument, constitutional, colonial, dutch
aliasesProeve-Oppenheim, Proeve van een staatsregeling voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Oppenheim draft, Leiden commission draft 1922

4 min read

Proeve-Oppenheim — Dutch for “Oppenheim’s Draft”, more fully proeve van een staatsregeling voor Nederlandsch-Indië (“a trial draft of a state regulation for the Netherlands Indies”) — is the draft constitution for the Dutch East Indies produced in 1922 by a commission of professors at Leiden University, in response to the Dutch constitutional revision of that year. The draft is named after Prof. Oppenheim, the commission’s leading figure; the other contributors were Snouck Hurgronje, Van Vollenhoven, Carpentier Alting and Kleintjes, with the Indonesian Mr. Oerip Kartodirdjo as secretary. The draft’s history is recorded in Mr. Dr. Caron’s chapter De bestuursvormen in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946).

Composition and work

According to Caron’s account, the 1922 Dutch constitutional revision introduced, in articles 1 and 63–64, “a very important change in colonial policy” by removing “all obstacles to the transfer of government and legislation to the Indies’ representative bodies in the Indies itself”, reserving only one subject — the constitution of the Netherlands Indies — for regulation by Dutch law. The 1922 revision also assigned the Governor-General “an own sphere of competence with regard to general government”, reserved to the Crown “only certain specific powers”, and otherwise left “the regulation of internal affairs to organs established in the Indies.” In response to this opening, “a commission of professors in Leiden formed, which compiled a proeve van een staatsregeling voor Nederlandsch-Indië.”

The commission’s membership — Oppenheim, Snouck Hurgronje, Van Vollenhoven, Carpentier Alting and Kleintjes, with Oerip Kartodirdjo as secretary — brought together the leading Dutch legal scholars of the day. Snouck Hurgronje’s presence on the commission is, for the Atjeh-focused reader, the principal point of interest: the same Snouck Hurgronje who had served as adviser to the colonial government during the Atjeh War and had helped Van Heutsz draft the *korte verklaring* policy was, in 1922, contributing to the constitutional framing of that policy in the wider Indies.

Influence and limitations

The Proeve-Oppenheim exercised, in Caron’s words, “great influence” on the eventual Wet op de Indische Staatsregeling (Law on the Indies State Regulation) of 1925. The eventual law, however, did not live up to the promise of the 1922 constitutional revision. “When, to satisfy the constitutional requirement, the draft of a law on the Indies state ordering had to be submitted to the States-General,” Caron writes, “the Dutch government, deviating from the intention that had preceded the constitutional revision to form a wholly new regulation, once more amended the old Regeeringsreglement, especially in the area of the central organisation of government and legislation, and named this law the law on the Indies state regulation.” The law came into force in 1925. “No autonomous administrative policy was given to the Governor-General, but the Governor-General was bound, in the exercise of general government, to the King’s instructions. The assignment of the regulation of internal affairs to organs established in the Indies had not taken place.” The result, in Caron’s judgement, was “great discontent in the Netherlands Indies.”

Significance for Atjeh

For the Atjeh-focused reader, the Proeve-Oppenheim’s significance is the placement of the Atjeh-derived *korte verklaring* policy of Van Heutsz and Snouck Hurgronje within the wider constitutional debates of the 1918–1925 period. The 261 self-governing territories (including the small self-governing territories of Atjeh) that the korte verklaring regulated by 1946 were the constitutional object on which the Proeve-Oppenheim bore; Snouck Hurgronje’s dual role — as architect of the korte verklaring in Atjeh and as contributor to the Proeve-Oppenheim in Leiden — places him at the intersection of the administrative and constitutional dimensions of the late-colonial Indies.

Dutch terms used in this article

  • Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
  • Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
  • Nederlandsch-Indië — Netherlands Indies
  • Proeve-Oppenheim — Oppenheim Draft
  • proeve van een staatsregeling voor Nederlandsch-Indië — trial draft of a state regulation for the Netherlands Indies
  • Wet op de Indische Staatsregeling — Law on the Indies State Regulation
  • Regeeringsreglement — Government Regulation
  • korte verklaring — Short Declaration
  • bestuursvormen — forms of government
  • pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
  • Atjeh — Aceh
  • Acheh — Aceh
  • Mr. Dr. — Master of Laws and Doctor (Dutch academic titles)
  • Dr. — Doctor

See Also

Source

Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), p. 195 (chapter De bestuursvormen door Mr. Dr. L. J. J. Caron).

Graph View

Backlinks