The Constitutional Court (The Court) stated that despite the administrative and criminal violations in Subulussalam election, they were not proven to be structured and massive. That was announced in the trial for decision reading for case No. 65/PHPU.D-VI/2008, Tuesday, (18/1) at The Court s Room.

Further The Court explained that the violations indeed affected the vote result but they were not significant enough to change the vote result rank. Therefore, The Court rejected the entire Petition of Asmauddin and Salmaza (Candidate Pair No. 5).

Asmauddin and Salmaza (The Petitioner) sent their objections on the Decision of Independent Election Commission (IEC) in Subulussalam City No. 35/2008 dated December 23, 2008 about the Announcement of Elected Mayor and Vice Mayor Pair and the Transcript of Proceeding of the Recapitulation Result of Subulussalam City Election dated December 18, 2008 to The Court. IEC also announced that Candidate Pair No. 1 got 14.922 votes while Candidate Pair No. 5 (The Petitioner) received 14.729. The result was refused by the Petitioner because of the bloating of 873 votes suspicion.

Related to the claims, the IEC in Subulussalam (The Petitionee) argued that Article 74 of Act No. 11/2006 about Aceh Government as the lex specialist (specific law) was still in effect. Hence such dispute was under the authority of the Supreme Court instead of The Court’s. Article 74 paragraph (2) of the Act mentioned, ”Objections as mentioned in paragraph (1) could only be filed by Candidate Pairs to the Supreme Court to the latest of 3 (three) working days after the election result is announced.”

According to The Court, the argument which set the Article 74 of Act No. 11/2006 as lex specialist was not appropriate, because even though The Act on Aceh Government acknowledged and contained specific things which was special, such stipulation was not one of the specialities. “The substance of the article is not different with Article 106 of Act No. 32/2004 before it was amended,” said Constitutional Justice Akil Mochtar.

Further Akil explained that Act No. 32/2004 which was amended in Act No. 12/2008 shifted the authority to handle disputes over recapitulation result in regional election from the Supreme Court to The Court.

On the substance of the case, The Court considered that all legal evidences as explained by witnesses and related to the relevant written evidences, there were indeed administratice as well as criminal violations. “However, the number of votes resulted from the violations which was seen as illegal votes by Candidate 1, according to The Court could not be seen as illegal and convincing on the claim of vote marking-up as argued” said Constitutional Justice Maria Farida Indrati.

About the criminal violations, according The Court, they were under the jurisdiction of Election Supervision Body for the follow-up. “Even though, there were administrative and criminal violations in the election, they could not be proven as structured and massive. Those violation indeed affected the vote result, but they were not enough to change the standing as announced by the IEC of Subulussalam City,” pointed out the Chief Justice of The Court, Moh. Mahfud MD, as he read the conclusion of the decision. (Luthfi Widagdo Eddyono)

Photo: Doc. of CCRI PR/Wiwik BW

Translated by Yogi Djatnika / CCRI