Constitutional Court hosts Malaysian Monitoring Team’s visit on Tuesday (24/6) in MK Meeting Room. In the opportunity, Head of Protocol and Public Relations Bureau Budi Djohari welcomed the visiting side. The visit was meant to look up after MK’s progress.

Budi explained that MK has 4 main authorities and a mandatory as determined in the Act. MK’s authorities include Judicial Review over Acts toward 1945 Constitution, to resolve disputed 1945 Constitution-granted institutions, to dissolve political party, and to decide over disputed election, while, the mandatory is to decide over DPR verdict of presidential annulment.    

He also added that one authority of dissolving political party has never taken place, while resolving over disputed elections have been done in numerous events. However, MK just annulled its authority to resolve over disputed local elections, this was decided because local election (Pemilukada) is considered apart from the general elections regime. “General Elections regime as determines in the 1945 Constitution, consist of two kinds of elections, Presidential election and legislative election. But during the meantime, until the government and DPR appoint the authorized institution, MK will still take in charge of handling disputed local elections,” he explained to the Malaysia’s Government and NGO-joint members.

In relations to Legislative Elections, Budi described that MK is now handling 903 cases as 15 Local and National Parties have filed. Only one Province is freed from any dispute, Yogyakarta. “To deal with the bustling and excessive cases, MK suggests its employees to work on a-full-month workdays, we also supported by the video conference technology which spread all over Indonesia to tackle any distance barrage,“ he said.

 The usage of video conference is also widened to lectures and seminars. This is meant to convey MK’s commitment in its participation to rise people’s awareness of the constitution and to bolster educational quality. Malaysian Monitoring Team appreciated the effort and cited the usage of video conference may be applied in Malaysia as well. (Lulu Anjarsari/mh)