Constitutional Justice Maria Farida Indrati with Head of Public Relations and Protocol Bureau Rubiyo attending an international symposium organized by the Constitutional Court of Turkey, April 25-28, 2018. Photo by Humas MK.

Constitutional Justice Maria Farida Indrati attended an international symposium, culmination of the 56^th Anniversary of the Constitutional Court of Turkey on April 25-28, 2018. The symposium on “Evaluation of the Five Years of Individual Application” was attended by 20 delegates of other constitutional courts, ambassadors, as well as the President of the Venice Commission Gianni Buquicchio.

The topics were Effects of the Individual Application Judgments on the Interpretation of the Constitution, Effects of the Individual Application Judgment on the Judicial System, Effects of the Judgments of the Constitutional Court on the Judgments of the ECHR, and General Evaluation and Statistics on the Individual Application Judgments. The speakers were academia, senior  advocates, and the Head of the Human Rights Department of the Turkey Ministry of Justice.

President of the Constitutional Court of Turkey Zühtü Arslan in his address expressed his hope that the symposium would encourage the participating constitutional courts to share experiences in order to enforce constitutional justice for their citizens through the individual constitutional complaint. Based on the amendment to the Constitution of Turkey in 2010, the Constitutional Court of Turkey is authorized to review individual complaints since 2012. The mechanism is an effective measure when there are no other measures to reclaim one’s human rights that are violated.

In the session on The Role of Constitutional Courts in Protection of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, Justice Maria Farida Indrati explained that the Constitutional Court of Indonesia did not have the authority to review constitutional complaints. “The Constitutional Court of Indonesia has the authority to examine laws against the 1945 Constitution, decide on authority dispute among state institutions, decide on disputes over election results, and decide on the dissolution of political parties, and is obligated to decide on the House’s opinion of alleged violation committed by the president and/or vice president. Currently the Court also has the transitional authority to decide on disputes over regional election results until the establishment of a special judiciary,” said the justice who was born in Solo on June 14, 1949.

On behalf of all Indonesian constitutional justices, Justice Maria congratulated the Constitutional Court of Turkey and expressed her appreciation for its role in guarding and protecting human rights and constitutional rights of the Turkish citizens. (Alboin/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)