Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Mahfud MD at the opening ceremony of the colloquium of âImproving Constitutional Understanding and Constitutional Courtâs Procedural Law for Christian High Education Societyâ a cooperation between the Constitutional Court and Institut Leimena (Leimena Institute), Friday (25/3) afternoon at the Gran Melia Hotel, Jakarta.
Jakarta, MKOnline - Pancasila (Five Principles) has always become a touchstone in every legislation products, even in law enforcement. Besides Pancasila, there are many others legal systems and ideologies in this world. Then where is Pancasila located among the ideologies? To explain this we can use prismatic theory as a science begun in 1961.
“The theory said that a social system like in Indonesia is a system which combines the best elements from somewhat contradicting values into one ideology,” explained the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court (The Court) Mahfud MD at the colloquium “Increasing Constitutional Understanding and Constitutional Court’s Procedural Law for Christian High Education Society” – a cooperation between The Court and Institut Leimena – on Friday (25/3) afternoon at Gran Melia Hotel, Jakarta.
Mahfud then explained about the relation between the prismatic theory and Pancasila, “Is Pancasila teaching about individualistic behavior like in the USA or communalistic like in Russia? It turned out that our country do not follow both, but we take positive values from both individualistic and communalistic. That is what we called Pancasila,” said the man born in May 13, 1957.
Mahfud said that Pancasila contained a philosophy that an individual has basic rights. However, we should not forget that an indivual existed and was useful when the person realized being a part of the people. That was the ideologic realm of our country.
“Similarly, Indonesian legal system do not follow the prismatic theory. Law in Indonesia demanded certainty that the rule should be clear, certain that it would be found inside a law,” explained Mahfud in the event that was also attended by the Secretary General of the Court, Janedjri M. Gaffar, the lecturers as well as students from theologic universities all over Indonesia.
Pancasila, continued Mahfud, demanded a legal certainty like civil law in European Continental. Besides that, it still provided some space to a judge whenever an existing law was not good, though it was still applied, we should not follow it.
“That is why The Court follow the prismatic rule with progressive paradigm. This is also a way to find Pancasila flowing through the legislation and justice’s decision,” added Mahfud.
Meanwhile, Jakob Tobing as the President of the Institut Leimena, in that opportunity explained two things that he considered necessary to be given attention to. The first one was despite the change in the 1945 Constitution, the spirit of 1945 Constitution was still there especially in the Preamble which contained the basic values of Pancasila.
“Meanwhile the second thing is the important principles like the checks and balances system principle, constitutional country principle or the respect to the basic Human Rights principle would only be strings of beautiful words in the constitution if the state, in this case the government, social organization and the people itself do not understand and not active in applying them,” ended Jakob.
The colloquium was held from 25 to 27 of March 2011 and it would officially be closed by the Secretary General of The Court, Janedjri M. Gaffar. This activity contained a series of lecture and question & answer with the resource person, Vice Chief Justice of The Court, Achmad Sodiki, Constitutional Justice Harjono, Maria Farida Indrati and others. (Nano Tresna A./mh)
Sunday, March 27, 2011 | 16:44 WIB 309