One of the Principal Petitioners Cecep Sopandi interviewed by the media after the judicial review hearing of the Fiscal Decentralization Law, Thursday (25/10) at the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ganie.

The preliminary examination hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 33 of 2004 on the Fiscal Balance between the Central and Regional Governments (Fiscal Decentralization) was held by the Constitutional Court (MK) on Thursday (25/10). The petition registered as No. 89/PUU-XVI/2018 was filed by Cecep Sopandi and 14 other Petitioners.

The Petitioners are residents of Bandung District, the biggest producer of geothermal electricity in Indonesia. They are directly affected by geothermal mining in Mining Work Areas (WKP) Darajat, Kamojang, and Pangalengan. Geothermal mining in those three regions have negatively impacted the lives and livelihoods of the Petitioners and other residents of Bandung District.

“Among those impacts are earthquakes and landslides. Earthquakes centered in the geothermal WKP have been experienced by the Petitioners and other residents of Bandung District. It is still occurring. The landslide due to geothermal mining occurred on May 5, 2015 in WKP Pengalengan. The landslide was accompanied by the explosion of production pipelines of the geothermal mining company. From those facts, there is a need for speedy response to deal with and/or mitigate the impact of disasters now and in the future,” Cecep said before the panel of justices.

Cecep said that as Article 21 paragraph (2) letter a of Law No. 33 of 2004 that regulated the distribution of geothermal mining profits for the province at 16% still applied, the Petitioners were constitutionally harmed. The earliest actions of rapid response or preventive mitigation as well as disaster preparedness and mitigation are done by the Bandung District Government, not West Java Province.

“We believe that our constitutional rights are violated by the enactment of Article 21 paragraph (2) letter a of Law No. 33 of 2004. The residents of Bandung District, the region producing geothermal electricity, have actually been paying for a higher tariff than residents of other regions,” Cecep asserted.

Clarify Petition 

In response to the Petitioners’ arguments, Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat advice that the Petitioners clarify their petition. “In principle, the petition was filed so that the public and the justices become aware and believe that the petition is truthful. However, [what you elaborated earlier] was not easy to understand. The justices could argue that the petition was obscure and cannot be granted. So the petition does not need to be lengthy like this. It should only [elaborate] the main issue. The main problem issue is this article contradicts which article of the 1945 Constitution?” he asked.

In addition, Justice Arief asked the Petitioners to explicitly describe parts of the Fiscal Decentralization Law that were detrimental to them. "You have to explain clearly [which part harmed you]. However, you did not elaborate on that," he said. 

Meanwhile, Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih advised the Petitioners to provide proof of the argument. "[You] may need to explore the Constitutional Court Law and Constitutional Court Regulation Number 6 of 2005. Understand them because then you can understand. If [one] submitted a petition of judicial review of a law, related to the Law, the Petitioner must be able to prove whether or not there is a right that is violated, harmed by the validity of the norm. That must be proven," she said. (Nano Tresna Arfana/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)