“We all can be like what we are now because of our teachers. I still remembered the name of my teacher who taught me how to write numbers, it was Pak (mister) Mochtar. When I heard the sound of his bicycle coming, all students were competing to bring his bag. It was like getting a blessing.” said Zainal Arifin Hoesein, Head of Public Relation and Protocol Bureau of the Constitutional Court in front of 9 tutors and 67 students from Teaching and Educational Science of Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta. According to Zainal, the most effective way to build constitutional awareness in every citizen was through teachers.

Besides telling the audience about his childhood, Zainal also explained that there were still many people did not realize the meaning of the amended constitution. That also caused some people to dream of going back to the old version of the 1945 Constitution. Actually, continued Zainal, it was the 1945 Constitution itself that triggered the existence of authoritarianism practices outside the democracy line. “So don t always blame the people, Pak Harto should not always be blamed,” he pointed out. 

Zainal also mentioned that Pak Harto actually only tried to put the legal norms within the 1945 Constitution into practices by creating the President as a central figure in the Government legitimated by the authority of a representative institution, that was the Higher Parliament; that ”that is why he could do almost anything, meanwhile people s contribution was limited,” he explained.

Such condition made the President s authority lack of monitoring. About this thing, “According to the record, there were about 350 President s Decrees or Instructions that went beyond his (Soeharto) power as a President.” continued Zainal.

Nevertheless, this condition changed after Soeharto s resignation. “Soeharto stepping down from the top of the power changed all the States organization. The pressure from the people, like it or not, forced the authorities to change,” he concluded.

The visit from teachers candidates from Constitutional Awareness Education Study Program was a form of a field study aiming at broadening the students mind and experiences in studying how constitution is put in practice as their base when they became teachers in the future.

Besides listening to the general lecture on the Constitutional Court s function and authorities in Indonesian Constitutional System, the students also had the opportunity to visit the Court s library and to follow a trial session. (Yogi Djatnika)

Photo: Doc. MK PR/Yogi Dj

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / MK