Legal counsels for the Petitioner Ricky Kurnia Margono and Christophorus Taufik during press interview after revision hearing the judicial review of the Election Law, Monday (30/7) at the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ganie.

The revision hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7/2017 on General Elections was held by the Constitutional Court (MK) on Monday afternoon (30/7). The petition registered as No. 60/PUU-XVI/2018 was submitted by the United Indonesia Party (Perindo). 

Christophorus Taufik as attorney explained that Perindo made revisions to the petition, among others on legal standing. "Our revision is to clearly state that the Petitioner is a political party participating in the 2019 Elections [as party] number 9," he explained to the panel of justices led by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat. 

In addition, Christophorus explained, based on the decision of the General Election Commission of the Republic of Indonesia No. 58/PL.01.1-Kpt/03/KPU/II/2018 on the Stipulation of Political Parties Participating in the 2019 Election of Members of the House of Representatives, Provincial Representatives Council, and District/Municipal Representatives Council, the Petitioner nominates the President and Vice President Joko Widodo and M. Jusuf Kalla in the 2019 Elections, which will be proposed to the political party coalition participating in the elections. 

"However, the nomination is constrained by the phrase \'or not consecutively\' in the Elucidation to Article 169 letter n of the a quo law. This is contained in the revision of the petition for number 13 and number 14 letter b in the Petitioner\'s Constitutional Losses section," Christophorus said. 

In terms of original intent, the revision mentioned conflict emerging in the discussion. "We read that the phrase \'and afterward\' in Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution implies that a candidates pair for president and vice president can be re-elected after completing [the previous term of office], which is interpreted as twice consecutively. This is the original intent of the constitution-makers, which can be read in the following statement. That our parliamentary group in the presidential term is related to Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution that currently reads, \'The President and Vice President hold their positions for a period of 5 years and afterward can be re-elected.\' Concretely, we propose in order to limit the presidential office, the president and vice president to hold the positions for a period of 5 years and be re-elected once. So, it means only twice consecutively," Christophorus said. 

Perindo had requested material judicial hearing of the Election Law to the Constitutional Court. The Petitioner argued that the nomination of President Joko Widodo and Vice President Jusuf Kalla was constrained by the phrase "not consecutively" in the Elucidation to Article 169 letter n of the Election Law, because Vice President Jusuf Kalla had served as vice president during the term of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2004 to 2009.

The Petitioner argued that the provision of Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution stipulates that the presidential and vice presidential candidate pair can be re-elected after completing the term of office in the previous period as long as [not twice consecutively] in the same position. The goal is that the best candidates running in the presidential and vice presidential election not be limited by the provision of two terms of office as president and or vice president, but will still be able to progress as presidential and vice presidential candidate pair even though they have served for two consecutive terms provided there is a gap between the two terms and the next nomination.

The phrase "not consecutively" in the Elucidation to Article 169 letter n of the Election Law became a source of confusion because the phrase implied an interpretation that was not in line with and not at all contradictory to Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution. The interpretation that the president and vice president are directly limited by elucidation to the article, which limits the term of office of the president and vice president to serving in the same position for two terms both consecutively and non-consecutively, is irrelevant. (Nano Tresna Arfana/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)