---

Chief Justice Arief Hidayat and Chairman of Four Pillars Socialization Agency of the People’s Consultative Assembly (Ketua Badan Sosialisasi Empat Pilar MPR RI) Ahmad Basarah became keynote speaker at the discussion held by the Parliament Reporters Koordinatoriat on Monday (2/3) at the MPR Building Jakarta. Photo PR/Ganie

 

 

Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Arief Hidayat became keynote speaker at the socialization of four pillar of the People’s Consultative Assembly (sosialisasi Empat Pilar Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat), the Pancasila as State Fundament and State Ideology, the 1945 Constitution (UUD 1945) as the State Constitution and the MPR Decree, the Unitary Republic of Indonesia (Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia) as a Form of State, and ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’ as a State motto.

At the socialization held by the reporters who usually carried out duty at the MPR, Arief Hidayat delivered that people during the reform era had forgot the State fundament, Pancasila. “We had succeeded in building politics and democracy, but we marginalize our nation noble values which stated in the Pancasila and the Constitution,” said Arief.

According to him who was also a law professor of Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia should be able to implement the norm of Pancasila. Arief assessed, political conflicts and commotion that recently occurred was because most people left the values of Pancasila. “This nation had lost its orientation, collective disorientation occurred and we lost our nation direction,” said he who born in Semarang.  

According to Arief, the People’s Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat –MPR) and the Constitutional Court (Mahkamah Konstitusi –MK) had similar vision and mission. “We (the MPR and MK) may different in the implementation,” said Arief. Moreover, according to Arief, although both institutions had differences in the level of implementation, both could support each other without the need for conflicting among them.

Ideal law politics

Arief said, the Pancasila was an ideal law politics and permanently applied, therefore the legislation should refer to the Pancasila. In order to interpret ideal law politics, basic law politics was needed, which was the Constitution which applied semi-permanent, amendable, but uneasy to be amended. According to Arief, the legislation was positioned as instrumental law politics which able to adjust the development.

The duty of Constitutional Court was keeping consistency, coherent, and correspondence between the legislation towards the 1945 Constitution and the Pancasila. If it wasn’t consistent, coherent, and correspondence with the Constitution, the legislation should be reconstructed. Arief gave example on Act of Water Resources which recently adjudicated by the Court. According to him, the Act a quo had liberalization nuance which contrary to the Constitution. Water was a source of people’s living, so it cannot be used as commercial commodity. Our constitution should be the highest law, because our law is different with other states because it had political values, economical values, social values, culture values, and religious values, and even according to Arief, the Indonesian constitution was also a green constitution which concerned on sustainable environment.

Answering the question from several reporters regarding the law upholding which tended to favor upper class society, Arief explained the weakness of Indonesia was always use formalistic approach that fixated to legal norm. In the other hands, Arief revealed, Indonesian people forgot to do culture approach and the legal culture approach was appeared after 1998. In addition, Arief also highlighted the passion of state officials which still weak.

According to him, it caused the ineffectiveness of legal culture. Arief exemplified England legal system had no written constitution; however its democracy atmosphere ran well due to the good legal culture. “We always said that Indonesia is a democracy state, but we can see, is the political resolution and legal resolution done by good legal culture and political culture? It is not,” said Arief. It was compounded that instant culture influenced Indonesian people.

Pancasila Socialization

Meanwhile, Ahmad Basarah said the government should formed particular institution to socialize the Pancasila, instead of the MPR or the MK who already established the Pancasila and Constitution Center (Pusat Pendidikan Pancasila dan Konstiusi –Pusdik) in Cisarua. Ahmad Basarah appreciated the MK who had coordinated with other state institutions to conduct Pancasila and Constitution socialization. He admitted that a phobia towards Pancasila socialization occurred, because of the bitter past before reformation. Ahmad Basarah also revealed, a memorandum of understanding on the socialization which based on the hearing between MPR Commissioners and the Constitutional Court will be created. (Ilham/Prasetyo Adi N)

 

---