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Monday, September 1, 2008

JAKARTA (Suara Karya): The existence, independency, and accountability of the Constitutional Court as the guardian of the constitution have to be strengthened through the revision of Act on Constitutional Court currently under discussion in the House of Representatives.

Head of Daily Management Board of the Consortium, Firmansyah Arifin, delivered that to the press in Jakarta, yesterday.

For the last five years after the establishment, the Constitutional Court had optimally been the court for constitution. Yet, the Consortium detected some problems related to the Court that had to be considered by the House of Representatives and the government in revising the Act. One of which was about the inconsistency of government and Parliament in executing the decision of the Constitutional Court judicial review.

According to Firman, actually all parties had to obey the decision of the Court as a judicial institution. "But, we know that the decision is not easy to follow, or positively responded by various elements of the people, government, and Parliament, in fact there is a tendency that they refuse the decision," he said.

The Act on Constitutional Court regulated the period for Chief Justice, Vice Chief Justice, and members of the Court was five years and could be re-elected for the next five years.

"Still, the election process is fragile from intervention of many parties intending to reduce the independency of the Constitutional Court. Because of that, we see the periodic matter have to be erased." He said.

The Consortium recommended that Article 50 of the Act on Constitutional Court be erased, also the authority of the Court to interpret the constitution, give legal consideration, information, advice concerning the constitution to whoever needed, be explained in detail.

" The Constitutional Court had also be better to have the authority for postponement of legal activity as the Act used as the ground for process is being reviewed," he said.

Related to the authority to settle dispute over State Bodies Authority, it had to be made clear about the State Bodies mentioned in the 1945 Constitution.

Concerning whether or not a Constitutional Justice was allowed to make an ultra petita or deciding more than what was pleaded, said Firmansyah, needed to be regulated in the Act on Constitutional Court.

"So far there has been a debate over the question whether or not a Constitutional Court is allowed to make an ultra petita," he said.

He said that the ultra petita should be allowed to Constitutional Justices so long as it was for the sake of progressive law reform also based on justice and usefulness principles.

According to him, the ultra petita was only restricted to Penal cases which were individual against individual, meanwhile in the constitutional judicial area like the Constitutional Court, the cases were related to the public interests and general norms. "Therefore, the constitutional justices had better be allowed to make an ultra petita," he emphasized.

Besides that, the National Law Reform Commission advised that the Act on Constitutional Court contained mechanism so that the decision of the Constitutional Court is really final and binding," he said. (Wilmar P)

Source: www.suarakarya-online.com

Photo: Courtesy of Constitutional Court Public Relation Doc.

Translated by: Yogi Djatnika

 

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