The Petitioners’ legal counsel represented by Ferdian Sutanto when submitting the principal of the revision of the petition for judicial review of Law on Road Traffic and Land Transportation (LLAJ Law) on Tuesday (9/11) the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ganie.

The judicial review of Law No. 22/2009 on Road Traffic and Land Transportation (Law LLAJ) was held by the Constitutional Court (MK) on Tuesday (9/1) afternoon to hear the petition revision. The Case No. 97/PUU-XV/2017 was petitioned by Etty Afiyati Hentihu, Agung Prastio Wibowo, Mahestu Hari Nugroho, and others.

One of the Petitioners\' attorneys, Ferdian Sutanto, clarified the legal standing of the Petitioners as recommended by the Panel of Justices in the previous session. The Petitioners are taxi drivers based on applications such as Go-Car, Grab-Car, and Uber-Car. In addition, the Petitioners also explained about definition of online application-based transport. 

"In our opinion, regarding four-wheeled public transport vehicles using online application-based transaction system, transport is the mobility of people and/or goods from one place to another by using a vehicle in a road traffic space. Public motor vehicles are any vehicles used for the transport of goods and/or persons with a fee," Ferdian said. 

Ferdian continued, the four-wheeled vehicles are land vehicles powered by engine using fuel that operate in road traffic space. The transaction system is part of the information system that runs and records transactions necessary to run business transactions. 

"Application is a computer program created to carry out the task. Online is the state of the computer connected to internet network," Ferdian added. 

Meanwhile, another attorney of the Petitioners, Edy M. Lubis, explained that the Petitioners have also improved the petition format and the legal standing of the Petitioners. Application-based taxi drivers may be affiliated with various applications—Go-Car, Grab-Car, or Uber-Car—as members.

"The urgency is that the disruption to the security and convenience of the Petitioners\' rights is a conditio sine qua non  for human rights. For example the rally by thousands of public transport drivers in Malang rejecting online transport on September 26, 2017," Edy said. 

The Petitioners work as online drivers question Article 151 letter letter a of the LLAJ Law that states that one of the public transportation services not in trajectories is the taxi. Article 151 of the Law on LLAJ states, "Passenger transportation service by public Motorized Vehicles not in trajectories as referred to in Article 140 letter b shall consist of: a. Passenger transportation by taxi...." 

In their petition, the Petitioners explained that the a quo provision has not accommodated the online taxi as one of the transportation services. This is considered detrimental to the Petitioners due to the exclusion of the online taxi in the a quo provision. This has the potential to harm the rights of the Petitioners to earn a living. Therefore, the Petitioners asked the Court to include the online taxi service into the LLAJ Law. (Nano Tresna Arfana/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)