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The legal Counsel of the Petitioner expected the Parliament to put a hold to the discussion of the new Presidential Election Draft Bill until the trial in the Constitutional Court finished.

The fight through the constitutional way to realize the individual Presidential candidacy begins. The fight was started off by Fajroel Rahman. Together with two other Petitioners – Marianna Amiruddin and Bob Febrian, Fajroel filed a review on Act No. 23/2003 on Presidential and Vice Presidential Election.

They officially registered their petition to the Constitutional Court, Tuesday (02/9) afternoon. Basically, the petitioners demanded the Parliament currently drafting the Presidential and Vice Presidential Bill to accommodate individual candidacy. “Starting from today until the following three months, we will celebrate the return of Indonesian people’s constitutional rights,” said Fajroel optimistically, after registering the petition.

Fadjroel said that so far Indonesian citizens’ constitutional rights had been castrated by the existence of the Act on Presidential election. He referred to the stipulation in Article 1 letter 6, Article 5 paragraph (1) and Article 5 paragraph (4) of the Act. The stipulation ordered that the Presidential candidates should come from political parties. It means that individual candidates can not go in for personally as a presiden. Even though the constitution put in one of the human rights related to equal position before the law and government. Fadjorel considered that his constitutional right to be elected as a president from independent line was blocked.

Different from Fajroel, Marianna and Bob Febrian also explained their reason. They both felt that their constitutional rights to choose Presidential candidate from individual line was also blocked. Moreover, the 2009 Election is the first election for Bob who is a young activist of Muhammadiyah.

Petitioners’ legal counsel, Taufik Basari spoke from legal technical point of view. Tobas, for short, said that at the moment the Petitioners were trying to provide interpretation related to Article 6A paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution. The Article was often considered as mandate from the constitution saying that presidential candidate should come from political parties. Article 6A paragraph (2) explicitly stated, "Each ticket of candidate for President and Vice-President shall be proposed prior to the holding of general election by political parties or coalitions of political parties which are participants of the general election".

Tobas said that this article was not a stumbling block. He used many legal interpretations to support his argument. The interpretation used could be grammatically, systematically, theologically and others. Moreover, he continued, so long as there were no clear and strict prohibitions, and then individual candidates were allowed to be put inside the Act on Presidential Election.

Discussion put on hold

besides that thing, Tobas also expected that the thought of the Parliament and Government were open with the trial of the Act on Presidential Election. “That independent candidates are indeed not against the constitution,” he exclaimed. At the moment, in Senayan a new Act on Presidential Election was under discussion.

Because of that, Tobas demanded that the trial at the Constitutional Court did not take a long time. “We expect that the trial at this Court can be finished quickly,” he said. It was due to the discourse developed inside the Constitutional Court could be used in the discussion of the Draft Bill of the Act in the Parliament.

However, if the Parliament were in a hurry to pass on the new Act without waiting for the result of the review, Tobas had prepared his following steps. If the new Act did not accommodate independent candidates either, he promised to re-apply to the Constitutional Court. “We can withdraw (the old Act-ed.) and file a new one (new Act on Presidential Election-ed.),” he explained.

Even though so, Tobas considered that it would be better for the Parliament to wait until the review ended. “Appropriately the Parliament, especially concerning the discussion of the independent candidates, waits for the decision of the Constitutional Court so that we can be efficient,” he said. Meanwhile for the discussion of other issues in the discussion, Tobas said they could go on with that.

Unfortunately, Tobas’ expectation could not be realized in a provisional demand within the Petition. Provisional demand requesting the Constitutional Court to release a letter in order that the matters related to the review of the Act were temporarily stopped was gaining popularity. This was assessed by the Moslem Lawyers Team requesting a pending on the execution of Amrozi, c.s. until the review of Act on Death Penalty Executing Procedures reached its decision in the Constitutional Court.

Tobas admitted that he was going to file a provisional demand in the petitum. However, after he recalculated, the provisional demand was possibly going to be rejected by the Constitutional Court. It was because the Court did not have the provisional authority to suspend the discussion of the Act. “I don’t want to be embarrassed,” he ended.(Ali)

Source: www.hukumonline.com (02/09/08)

Photo: Courtesy of http://www.perspektifbaru.com/i/art/M-Fadjroel-Rachman-f_735_f_362.jpg

Translated by: Yogi Djatnika

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