The Constitutional Court (MK) held a hearing for preliminary examination in judicial review of Law Number 56 PRP Year 1960 regarding the agricultural land area determination on Thursday, May 10 2007 at 10.00 WIB in the court room of the Constitutional Court, Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat Number 7 Central Jakarta. This case was registered on Friday, April 20 2007, at 09.00 under case number 11/PUU-V/2007. The case had been examined by a Panel Comprising Justices Maruarar Siahaan, S.H., Soedarsono, S.H., and Prof. H.A. Mukthie Fadjar, S.H., MS., with the Substitute Registrar, Eddy Purwanto.

Yusri Ardisoma, a farmer, filed a petition to the Constitutional Court for judicial review of Article 10 Paragraph 3 along with its elucidation and Article 10 Paragraph 4 along with its elucidation of Law Number 56 PRP Year 1960 regarding the Agricultural Land Area Determination to be declared contradictory to Article 28H Paragraph 4 of the 1945 Constitution.

The Petitioner filed petition for judicial review of this Law to the Constitutional Court because he claims that he has been harmed by the confiscation of his ancestral land of 277,643 hectares by the District Prosecutor’s Office of Subang on September 13, 1979. The decision of the case which was filed to the District Court of Subang states the aforementioned land must be executed because it exceeds the maximum limit of agricultural land ownership as regulated in Law Number 5 Year 1960 as well as its implementing regulations.

For the abovementioned legal events, the Petitioner as the party inheriting the land considered that his constitutional rights and authorities had been impaired by the application of Article 10 Paragraphs 3 and 4 of Law Number 56 PRP Year 1960 because of the forfeiture of the land by the state without any compensation.

In the first hearing, the Chairperson of the Panel of Justices Maruarar Siahaan suggested the Petitioner that his petition should focused more on the mentioned Law Number 56 PRP Year 1960, particularly regarding the definition of ownership title or the constitutional rights of the Petitioner which are contradictory to the Constitution and impaired with the existence of the aforementioned law.

In the hearing, the Petitioner said that basically he did not have any objection to any Law limiting the ownership of agricultural land. But in this matter, the Petitioner is of the opinion that there should be a compensation for the land owner as a consequence to the confiscation of the aforementioned land.

At the end of the hearing, the Panel of Constitutional Justices gave the Petitioner a two-week period to revise his petition and to ask the advice of legal experts in the revision of the petition. Hopefully, the end of this farmer’s struggle in striving for his constitutional right in the Constitutional Court will be successful ?! (Vien)