Human Resources Department Head Iman Sudirman posing with interns from UIN Syarif Hidayatullah and Australia in the closing ceremony, Friday (15/2/2019).

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court closed the internship program involving four UIN Syarif Hidayatullah students and three Australian university students. The internship program, which ran from January to February 2019, was closed by the Human Resources Department Head Iman Sudirman on Friday (15/2/2019) in the Meeting Room of the Constitutional Court.

In his speech, Iman thanked the interns who had chosen the Court for their internship. He hoped that the knowledge gained by the students would be useful in the future. “Hopefully this will be a pioneer for similar programs in the future,” he said.

The three Australian university students who interned as part of collaboration between the Court, the Atmajaya University, and ACICIS, reported their experience before reviewers, including senior Court researcher Pan Mohamad Faiz, Head of the Sub-department of Human Resources and Andi Hakim, Head of the Sub-department of AACC Permanent Secretariat Indah Apriyanti, and Head of the Sub-department of International Cooperation Immanuel Hutasoit. The interns were Molly Cooke from Monash University, Tom Nobes from the Australia National University, and Salonika Mitter from Macquarie University.

Tom Nobes explained the differences between the Australian and Indonesian legal systems. According to him, the 1945 Constitution explained in detail the constitutional rights of every citizen, such as economic guarantees, religious freedom, freedom of association and assembly, and guarantee of education. This is unlike Australia, where the individual constitutional rights guaranteed are only rights regarding religious freedom.

Nobes also expressed his surprise that the Indonesian criminal law system still adhered to the Criminal Procedure Code, which was inherited from the Dutch. This is different from Australia whose Parliament issue regulations every year. "In Australia, if someone files a petition for judicial review and the justices decide that the law be amended, the law will be amended," he said.

Molly Cooke in her report "Dualism Analysis of the Judicial Review System and the Relationship between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court" analyzed the differences between the judicial review systems employed by the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Indonesia. She deemed the Constitutional Court a result of the reforms that changed the Indonesian legal system. All judicial reviews had initially been carried out by the Supreme Court, but after the reform the authority was transferred to the Constitutional Court.

Salonika Mitter in her report "Does the Constitutional Court Protect or Restrict Religious Freedom?" She argued that the Constitutional Court respects Indonesia\'s historical, social, and religious contexts by upholding the Blasphemy Law, which protects the constitutional rights of religious freedom. Although the application of the Blasphemy Law is relatively broad, the law was created when Indonesia\'s democratic system began to take shape, and required the state to be able to guarantee the protection of religious adherents. Although it is difficult to regulate that such a law not be discriminatory against minority or deviant religions, it must be noted that Indonesia focuses on a consensus-based approach to protecting human rights. (Lulu Anjarsari/Yuniar Widiastuti)