Chief Justice of The Court, Moh. Mahfud MD and Sucipto (Head of the Committee) during a Consultative Meeting Between Special Committee for Legislation Making and Constitutional Justices, Tuesday (1/3)
Jakarta, MKOnline - A number of Members of the House of Representatives (DPR) came to the Constitutional Court’s Building to hold a consultative meeting with the Constitutional Justices. They belonged to a Special Committee for Legislation Making.
Their visit was as an effort to get further inputs from the Constitutional Court (The Court). The legislators were members of Commission II, Commission III, and Commission V. They were Sucipto (Head of the Committee), Ignatius (Democrat Faction), Hayono Isman (Democrat Faction), Harry Witjaksono, Ahmad Basarat, Usman Ja’far and Rahadi Zakaria.
“Based on the General Assembly Meeting of the Parliament on September 27, 2010, we were mandated to form this Special Committee for Legislation Making,” said Sucipto at the beginning of the discussion.
Meanwhile, the Constitutional Justice attending the meeting were Mahfud MD as the Chief Justice, Maria Farida Indrati, Harjono, Akil Mochtar, Hamdan Zoelva, Ahmad Fadlil Sumadi, and Achmad Sodiki. The Secretary General of The Court, Janedjri M. Gaffar also attended the meeting.
“Basically, The Court can not give any inputs to the legislation product which is under discussion in the Parliament, but in the framework of discussion and sharing of our view and experiences in the legislation field, of course we can seek for the best. This (the result of the meeting) is not binding, this may be used but may be disregarded as well,” said Mahfud MD.
In this opportunity, Harjono gave an input for the legislators to study carefully the content of Article 7. “Because it is related to the source of authority, I think we need to define clearly the relationship between the Central and the Regional. Act on MD3 (Act on Parliamentary) and Act on Regional Government become important pillars for explanation,” Harjono pointed out.
Meanwhile, related to the implication of The Court’s Decision, Mahfud MD stated that some of the Decisions were self-executing (directly applied) while some others had to wait for An Act to be issued. “In practice, there are two kinds,” said Mahfud.
Maria Farida Indrati, a justice who is also an expert in Legislation field, underlined the importance of understanding the Legislation Hierarchy. “Legislators represent the people. They can not regulate who they represent. Related to the legislation making process, this hierarchy has to be considered carefully,” said Maria. She also paid attention to the Decrees of the People’s Deliberation Assembly (Tap MPR) including the decrees which were individual, concrete, and final.
Justice Achmad Sodiki gave an input concerning the importance of arranging the customary laws. “So far, the positive laws when they enter the regional, they overcome the customary laws. Actually, the customary laws are the pure reflection of the local people. So please pay attention carefully on where you put these customary laws,” said Sodiki in front of the consultation forum. (Yazid/mh/YDJ)
Thursday, March 03, 2011 | 14:29 WIB 265