Attorney Damian Agata Yuvens explaining the points of revision in the judicial review hearing of Law Number 7 of 2014 on Trade, Monday (11/3) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

The Constitutional Court held the judicial review hearing of Law Number 7 of 2014 on Trade, Monday (11/3). The second session of case No. 16/PUU-XVII/2019 was to hear the revision to the petition.

The judicial review petition of the Trade Law was filed by Reza Aldo Agusta, a semester 4 student of Unika Atmajaya Yogyakarta. He challenged Article 4 paragraph (2) letter d of the Trade Law that reads, “In addition to the scope of the arrangements referred to in paragraph (1), also regulated tradable services including: d. Educational services.”

In this session, attorney Damian Agata Yuvens said three parts were changed. First, on the legal standing. He explained that the object of the petition caused high cost of education so that the Petitioner was restricted from affording higher education for years. "Even from the available data, there appears to be a significant increase with respect to tuition fees from year to year," he explained in the session led by Constitutional Justice Suhartoyo.

Then, with regard to the posita, Damian stated that education services are any and all services related to the administration of education. Educational services include services in the provision of formal, non-formal, informal education as well as services that support education. This means that the regulation in the Trade Law on education services that can be traded is a very broad arrangement.

"The problem is that the implementation of formal, non-formal, and informal education has been specifically regulated in the National Education System Law and the Higher Education Law. The provision in the Trade Law has caused multiple provisions on the same issue," he explained.

Meanwhile, he added, the Trade Law requires the implementation of educational services that aim to gain profits from the consumers-producers relationship, which can lead to expensive access to education.

Finally, in the petitum the Petitioner had previously requested for the revocation of the entirety of Article 4 paragraph (2) letter d of the Trade Law. In this session, the Petitioner requested the Court’s interpretation of the article and the declaration that Article 4 paragraph (2) letter d of the Trade Law is conditionally unconstitutional insofar as interpreted as “educational services that are principally nonprofit and include formal, non-formal, and/or informal education.”

In the preliminary hearing on Tuesday (26/2), attorney Damian Agata Yuvens said that the Petitioner had felt that his constitutional rights had been violated by the increase of education costs. He said that when educational services were seen as commodity, it would lead to the increase of education costs. In addition, he argued that the objective of education would change from educating to profit-making.

Education that is regarded as a commodity in the a quo law potentially shifts the relationship between education providers and students to one between producers and consumers. According to the Petitioner, the purpose of education in Indonesia was to educate the nation, as stated in the fourth paragraph of the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution. (Arif S./NRA/Yuniar Widiastuti)