Everyone can take part in giving their service and thoughts to develop the national sports through  various ways and channels available. For example, the Public Officers, like governors or the members of Provincional Parliament can provide forbearance in establishing sport facilities by fighting for allocating the sports budgeting in provincional budgeting discussion. It could also be possible that they become a permanent donor in specific sports in the province, or become a chairperson of a certain sport. Those things are not prohibited by the law.

Nevertheless, to anticipate the conflict of interest or in the effort to keep the neutrality in counseling the national sports, the Act No. 3 Year 2005 on National Sports System (UU SKN) providing guidelines in order to make the management could be carried out focused and professionally, by prohibiting Public Officers to have a double position as the head of the Sports Committee (KONI).

Those are some of the points summarized from the statement given by Minister of Youth and Sports (Menpora), Adhyaksa Dault and Members of the Peoples Representatives Assembly H.M. Akil Mochtar when giving statements on the trial of Article 40 Act on Sports System in The Constitutional Court, Tuesday (8/1).

According to Adhyaksa, the regulation in Article 40 of the mentioned Act that prohibited the Sports Committee Officials to be chaired by a Public Officers as a kind of general protection for everybody wished to developed Indonesian sports. Because of that, he added, Government stated that the related regulation had provided guarantee in establishing the law certainty and sense of justice among the people. The main point is to provide equal opportunity for all people who were not public officers or strucural officers. “If the Sports Committee is chaired by Governor or Vice Governor, he or she may not be able to come to the field at least once a month, moreover the scope of the area is very wide, therefore the person should be focus,” exclaimed the Minister who is also an ex-chairman of KNPI (Indonesian Youth National Committee).

Moreover Adhyaksa also addedd, regarding the funding reason, in the Article 69 of Act on National Sports, it had been clearly arranged that the funding of the sports was a shared responsibility between the government, provincial government, and the people. Therefore without double position between becoming the Head of Indonesian Sports Committee and becoming the Governor or the Member of Provincial Parliament altogether, the funding of the sports will be assured.

The same opinion was also delivered by Akil Mochtar as the Legal Counsel of the Parliament. Akil pointed out that the Independency of the Provincial, Regent/City, Sports Committee was needed to establish the transparency and accountability principles existed which focuses on providing a control mechanism to eliminate the insufficiency and deviance, and as the result the aim of the national sports could be achieved.

Because of that, according to Akil, to secure neutrality and professionalism of the sports management, a regulation should be made on the organisation of the managing committee not to be related to the structural or political position as mentioned in the Article 40 Act on National Sports System. ”He who is agreed to be the officers of the Sports Committee and the head of the management of the sports organisation should not be a public or structural officers, therefore the sports could be managed full time and  did not provide any opportunities for collution, corruption, and nepotism conducted by the Sports Committee officials or the officers in the main organisation who has double position in the government,” he pointed out.

Akil also added, Governor as the Head of a region, had a duty and authority to arrange and submit the draft of the Provincial Regulation on Provincional Budgeting for the Provincial Parliament to be discussed and authorized together.

“If it is related to the regulation on Article 4 of the President Decree No. 72 Year 2001 on Indonesian Sports Committee stating that the budget to do the sports activities was also originated from the National or Regional Funding allocation, threfore it is not clear where in one side he was the Governor, the maker of the Provincial Budgeting whereas in the other side as the Head of the Indonesian Sports Committee, he is the acceptor of the budgeting itself,” he added.

Not A Discrimination

About Article 40 Act on National Sports Committee that regulated only about the Sports Committee officials is not a public officers whereas the same regulation did not apply in a sports organisation, both the Government and the Parliament agreed that it was not a discrimination.

“The Petitioners said that Article 40 Act No. 3 Year 2005 on National Sports System is discriminative, therefore it violated Article 28I Paragraph (2) the 1945 Constitution. The Petitioners opinion is not right, considering Article 40 Act No. 3 Year 2005 on National Sports System applies equally for all Public Official Position ruling out the double position as the Sports Committees management board,” said Akil who is a politician from Golkar Party.

Meanwhile, according to the Government, the prohibition for the structural and public officers to be the chairman of the central, provincial, or regent/city national sports committee could not be easily considered as a discriminative action because it was both based on religious aspect.

“The meaning of discriminative action, according the Article 1 Paragraph (1) Act No. 31 Year 1999 on Human Rights or Article 2 Paragraph (1) ICCPR—International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was (if conducted) on behalf of religion, tribe, race, ethnic, group, social status, economic status, gender, language, and political belief,” explained Minister Adhyaksa Dault.

The trial of Article 40 Act on National Sports System that stated “The Managent board of National Sports Committee, Provincial Sports Committee, Regent/City Sports Committee having the individual character and not related to the activities of structural and public officers” was filed by the Head of Indonesian Sports Committee for Surabaya City, Saleh Ismail Mukadar, who is also Chairman of Commission E of the East Java Provincial Parliament and Ir. Syahrial Oesman, South Sumatra Governor, who is also the Head of Indonesian Sports Committee for South Sumatra.

The Petitioners considered the regulation had eliminated the meaning of equal treatment for all the citizens before the law, as mandated by Article 27 Paragraph (1) and Article 28D Paragraph (2) 1945 Constitution. The Petitioners considered that the Article 40 Act on National Sports System have proven to be discriminative because the regulation only applied for the member of the sports committee  meanwhile the member of management board of a certain sports group was permitted to be held by a  public officers. Meanwhile, according to the Petitioners, being held by a governor, regent/mayor meant that the Provincial Sports Committee would be assissted in conducting the counseling and development of the sports in that area, especially in terms of providing budget and fund. [ardli/yogi]