オランダ植民地統治と法の支配 : 統治法109条による「ヨーロッパ人」と「原住民」の創出

Abstract

This paper aims to give a brief overview of Dutch colonialism by focusing on the Regeringsreglement, regarded as the basic law of the East Indies. Close attention is paid to article 109 of the Regeringsreglement. This article provided the basis for racial criteria, dividing the inhabitants of the East Indies into "European" and "Inlander, " a division which had great influence in determining the features of colonial government in its legal, administrative, and social aspects. The Regeringsreglement became law in 1855 as a result of constitutional revision in the Netherlands in 1848. The revision, guided by J. R. Thorbecke, a prominent liberal who later led three cabinets, established a governing principle based on the rule of law. This principle, constitutionalism, introduced certain political rights such as freedom of press and association and direct voting. This was a fundamental change in policy that affected the guiding principles of government not only in the motherland, but also in the East Indies. The rule of law defines the limits of government power over inhabitants by demarcating a line between the public and private spheres. A constitutional colonial government would not be able to use its power arbitrary, as it had in the past. However, all inhabitants could not equally exercise rights in the East Indies. Those categorized as Inlander had to obey adat law. European, i. e. Dutch, law was only applied to those regarded as European. Article 109 of the Regeringsreglement denoted who belonged to the category European and who did not, thus creating the legal concepts "European" and "Inlander" which became the basis of the dual legal structure of the East Indies. In other words, colonial society came to be organized in terms of the Dutch legal order. There was another reason to introduce article 109. Debates at the time revealed the responsible parliamentary committee's serious objections to the religion-based equalization of Inlander and European Christians. It was mainly for political reasons that religious criteria were abandoned. As Christian Inlanders would not be subject to the burdens of the culture system if granted equal status with Europeans, the committee demanded the Indies government drop the religious criteria. This in turn meant a fundamental transformation in how people were perceived, religious criterion being replaced by national or racial criterion. As these legal categories penetrated colonial society, they provided a framework on which not only the Dutch but all the inhabitants of the colony relied. The term "Inlander" came to be seen as a passive word by the indigenous people of the East Indies, who began to demand that the Dutch replace it with "Indonesian, " a term the colonial government would not allow to be used officially until the end of the Japanese occupation.