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[11/11/08]

Constitutional Court held four trials of disputes over regional election results in a single day. Besides that, there were still nine new cases waiting in line, ready to be registered.

 

Officers in court division of the Constitutional Court seemed to be very busy. They were seen moving here and there calling all parties to enter the court room. It could be understood, if normally The Court only held one or two trials a day, this time it could reach up to four cases brought to trial. The all four cases had similar topic that was dispute over regional head election result regional election result case for short.

 

Four dispute cases brought before the court on Monday (10/11), were election in Donggala Regency, North Gorontalo Regency, Cirebon Regency also Ogan Komering Ilir Regency. Based on Regulation of the Constitutional Court about procedural law related to dispute over regional election result, such cases had to be decided within 14 working days.

 

Besides the four cases, there were still nine new cases waiting to be registered. That was revealed by Khairuddin, an officer in case file administration. The cases among others were Makassar Municipality Election, Luwu Regent Election, Jayawijaya Regent, Biak Regent. The number of cases was possible to increase. Based on hukumonline surveillance, several people still came to register their cases on dispute over regional election result.

  

The case flooding to the Court could not be separated from the diversion for settling dispute over regional election from the Supreme Court to the Constitutional Court. This was based on the stipulation in Article 236 letter c Act No. 12/2008 about revision of Act on Regional Government. The Supreme Court had officially moved the authority to do it to the Constitutional Court at the end of last month.

 

Khairuddin said that most Petitioners were still confused in preparing their file. “Cases that could be brought to the Constitutional Court is only about differences or margin in votes, not violation of holding the regional election,” he emphasized. 

 

About registration time, Khairuddin had a unique story. Last Friday (7/11), he had to work overtime. It was because there was a Petitioner from Papua still on the way to Jakarta special to register a case. “They were asking to be waited. Poor them, I felt pity on them” he recalled. He admitted that he had to stay in the office until ten at night just to manage the registration file.

 

The existence of Constitutional Court which is only in Jakarta indeed raised a worry when the Supreme Court moved the dispute cases to the Constitutional Court. To answer the worry, the Court actually had open online case registration facility through the internet. However, this was not to popular for people in far areas. “Only one case is registered online, so far,” said Khairuddin.  

 

Time wasting
Unique story also happened in the court room. First case, Donggala Regency case, had to be suspended. Because the petitioners came late for about 45 minutes from the scheduled time. It turned out that the petitioner admitted that it was common to come late when he had a case in the District Court. This habit could not be tolerated by the Constitutional Justices.  

 

Legal Counsel for Ogan Komering Ilir case, Sulyaden gave two thumbs up for this discipline. “If a case is scheduled at ten in District Court, the trial could start at three,” revealed the man who had his first case at the Constitutional Court. He also said that the administration discipline in Constitutional Court had to appraised.

 

However, related to the diversion of the regional election dispute, Sulyaden was once got confused. At the beginning he registered his case to the High Court. He just found it out after reading news in mass media that such cases were moved to the Constitutional Court. Luckily the Head of the High Court immediately sent a letter to Chief Justice of the Court as a follow up.

 

Different from Sulyaden, Legal Counsel for North Gorontalo case, Suhardi La Maira had another story. His behaviour of having private cases was brought to the Constitutional Court. In his petitum, he mentioned about the trial fee. “Imposing trial fee on the Petitionees,” he mentioned.

 

Constitutional Justice Akil Mochtar chairing the trial immediately clarified that. He said that having a case in the Constitutional Court did not have a trial fee neither to the Petitioners nor the Petitionees. “There is no fee here, the most important thing is justice,” he said.

 

Besides that, Akil also noticed that the petition was still considered complicated. He demanded the Petitioners to differenciate his case with private case. “Petition should be arranged in a simple way,” he remarked.

 

(Ali)

 

Source: http://www.hukumonline.com/detail.asp?id=20462&cl=Berita

Photo: Doc. MK PR/Wiwik BW

Translated by YOGI DJATNIKA / MK

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