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by : Siagian Priska Cesillia

THE SPIRIT to share knowledge has never vanished from Jimly Asshiddiqie. Besides being a Constitution Justice, he has never neglected the call for being a lecturer. Limited amount of time and a pile of job never seems to be the reason for leaving his duty as a lecturer.

Even though he is no longer staying at the Law Faculty of University of Indonesia, the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court still teaches. The method of his learning is quite interesting through video with 15 minutes duration that can be downloaded through his personal sites www.jimly.com. The Professor in constitutional law is one of the people exposed to technology. Unique, in a level of a professor he still keep in touch with teaching technology.

"Every video is limited to 15 minutes only so that it can be used in the class. A lecturer for example, when teaching about a topic can play my online lecture to be discussed together. Because normally a lecture lasts for 1.5 hours, so my video does not have to be too long," he revealed to Jurnal Nasional when interviewed at his office, last Thursday.

While watching the online lecture entitled Hukum Acara di Mahkamah Konstitusi (Procedural Law in Constitutional Court), the man who was born on April 17, 1956 expected that his video to be used by college students or lecturers in law faculty but also high school teachers. "I will explain about the constitutional law as a science, constitution or the 1945 Constitution, and the Constitutional Court as the guardian of the constitution. Besides that, I will also explain all of my 30 books. I will explain every chapter."

Until now, in his personal site, Jimly has got five videos about the Constitutional Court and two introductory lessons about constitutional law. "I made the ones about the Constitutional Court first because it is related to my duty. For me, my position has to be used as a learning media. That is the main principle." With that principle, Jimly is encouraged to learn everything related directly or not to his position. Therefore, his role to serve the constituent and stakeholders can be done better through the time.

"All stakeholders have their interests because of that they deserve to know whatever we do, the detail of our job and duties in regard to this position. So the mandatory should inform them and that is what is called by teaching. Automatically every position should be transparent," he pointed out as he mentioned that there were 400 to 600 netters a day actively conducting questions and answers.

Jimly expected such method could make constitution and people to come closer. This is similar to one of the functions of the Constitutional Court to protect citizen’s constitutional rights that could be threatened or damaged by the state decision in form of laws. "Because of that, every citizen does not need to know the laws, let the law graduates take care of them. However, the 1945 Constitution is another case, every citizen needs to know personally because the faith and the life as a citizen is guaranteed by the constitution," he said.

Apart of the low price, the spreading of knowledge online was more effective because it would be used by many people. He hoped that every people would have high awareness about the state and constitutional protection.

Besides online learning, Jimly was also working on the birth of MKTV to initiate the court tv era. He was aiming at touching the television industry to start build an open tradition in Court environment. It was expected that the opportunity to do the modernization in law and trial in Indonesia could be increased because everything related to these would be exposed to public.

"There is no grey area in court or law world. There should not be any disclosure, except the one that should be made a secret. As an example, a case that has not been decided and justices internal debate that is forbidden to be exposed. Out there, there is no secrecy," emphasized the Professor in Constitutional Law from the University of Indonesia.

Source:http://www.jurnalnasional.com/?media=KR&cari=MK&rbrk=&id=53621&detail=Politik - Hukum – Keamanan

Photo: courtesy of Constitutional Court PR document

Translated by: Yogi Djatnika (MKRI)

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