Constitutional Court (MK) held another hearing of Act 21/2011 (UU OJK) on Thursday (8/28) at MK Plenary Room. The Plaintiff should have presented experts in the trial, but it was cancelled. Chief Justice Hamdan Zoelva let the Plaintiffs to go on in the next hearing. “Next hearing will be conducted on Thursday, Spetember 18, 2014,” Hamdan said.

In the previous trial, Finance Service Authority (OJK) was seen to surpass Bank of Indonesia’s (BI) authority, given that BI’s status as central bank is determined in 1945 Constitution. Thus, several individual Plaintiffs , incorporated within “Tim Pembela Ekonomi Bangsa” applied for a judicial review over UU OJK.  

In the Application, Plaintiffs see that their constitutional rights were harmed by the ruling of Article 1, Article 5, Article 6, Article 7, Article 37, Article 55, Article 64, Article 65, and Article 66 UU OJK. In principle, OJK’s competence only conveys the settlement of regulation related to finance service firm monitoring supposedly, therefore, OJK’s authority to monitor other finance firms stands on no legal ground, according to the Plaintiff.   

“Banking was exiled from OJK’s authority. If OJK grabbed all authority to entire finance sectors, OJK will lately become giant generator hogging finance market. Any public interest related to finance stability will be abandoned and deteriorated,” Syamsudin Slawat, Plaintiff’s attorney, explained.  

For that faith, Plaintiffs asked MK to declare UU OJK, especially Article 1, Article 5, and Article 37 opposed 1945 Constitution. Otherwise, they asked phrase “regulating duty and finance sector monitoring” to be removed. They also asked to halt OJK’s operation until the Court decides. (Lulu Anjarsari/mh)