Constitutional Justice Hamdan Zoelva delivered a Scientific Oration on âImpeachment of Indonesian President: Reasons and Mechanismâ in 2011 Graduation Day of Post-Graduates, Graduates and Under-Graduates of Asy-Syafiâiyah University in Kartika Chandra Hotel Jakarta, Thursday (31/3).
Jakarta, MKOnline – Impeachment of President is an effort to limit the power. “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That was an old saying often said in scientific forums by those who study state administrative law and politics,” revealed Constitutional Justice Hamdan Zoelva as he delivered a Scientific Oration on “Impeachment of Indonesian President: Reasons and Mechanism” in 2011 Graduation Day of Post-Graduates, Graduates and Under-Graduates of Asy-Syafi’iyah University in Kartika Chandra Hotel Jakarta, Thursday (31/3).
The limitation of power continued Hamdan was written in the Quran “Janganlah kamu berlebih-lebihan, sesungguhnya Allah tidak menyukai orang yang berlebih-lebihan.” The word ‘impeachment’ is a relatively new terminology in everyday use; even though in scientific Malayan language, this word has been known for a long time.
“Impeachment is actually derived from Arabic, meaning to get rid of, to separate, or dismissed from a position. I prefer using the word ‘impeachment’ to using dismissed from the term of office. The word ‘dismissed’ may just be a place for a stop, for example a bus stop. So it is not really appropriate. Meanwhile ‘impeachment’ in English would mean accusation not dismissal,” explained Hamdan to the audience.
After the Indonesian Independence, there had been two impeachments of Indonesian Presidents. First is the impeachment of President Soekarno in 1967 and second is the impeachment of President K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001. Soekarno could not be held responsible for his policy on G-30 S/PKI outbreak with its epilogue, economy drawback and moral degradation.
“Meanwhile, Gus Dur was impeached by the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) through the Special Session of the MPR after being considered violating the 1945 Constitution and National Guidelines (GBHN). Gus Dur refusal to attend the MPR inquiry for responsibility in the Special Session of MPR after his announcement of Presidential Decree to freeze the MPR and the House of Representatives (DPR), also for dissoluting Golkar Party were considered by the MPR as Presidents’ breach of the 1945 Constitution and National Guidelines,” added Hamdan.
Rights of Stating Opinion
The impeachment process after the Amendment of the 1945 Constitution began with the proposal from members of the Parliament to use their rights on opinion concerning the allegation of President to have violated the law in form of treachery to the state, corruption, bribery, other heavy crimes or disgrace action.
“If the proposal of assessing rights on opinion was accepted in the plenary session, the Parliament would form a Special Committee to study on this matter by conducting investigation, collecting evidence, asking information from witnesses and related parties including discussion with the President,” informed Hamdan.
Hamdan also said that if the plenary session of the DPR-based on the result of Special Committee discussion-accepted the statement of the DPR with approval from at least 2/3 of the DPR members attending the session which was attended by at least 2/3 of the total members, then the DPR would make a proposal to the Constitutional Court (The Court) to examine and adjudicate on this opinion.
“The Procedural Law on Presidential Impeachment in The Court follows the procedural law applies in The Court, as arranged by law or The Court’s regulation. The Court could only examine and adjudicate a case on Presidential Impeachment if there is a proposal from the DPR with clear explanation on the suspicion that the President has committed violations as mentioned before,” concluded Hamdan (Nano Tresna A./mh/YDJ)
Thursday, March 31, 2011 | 14:17 WIB 604