The Constitutional Court holding the plenary ruling hearing of the judicial review of Article 326 of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Tuesday (21/5) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) could not accept the judicial review of Article 326 of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections on Tuesday (21/5/2019). The petition of case No. 71/PUU-XVI/2018 was deemed obscure by the Court.

The petition No. 71/PUU-XVI/2018 was filed by Petitioners Dorel Almir, Abda Khair Mufti, and Muhammad Hafidz. The Petitioner questioned the Election Law that does not regulate the limitation of campaign funding originating from one or a pair of candidates for the president and vice president or from political parties.

Constitutional Justice Manahan M. P. Sitompul, reading out the legal considerations, said that the Court did not understand what the Petitioners requested. That is because the Petitioners requested that the Constitutional Justices declare Article 326 of the Election Law unconstitutional and not legally binding insofar as not interpreted as “Campaign funds for the Election of President and Vice President as referred to in Article 325 paragraph (2) letters a, b, and c of Law No. 7 of 2017 originating from any candidate pair, political party and/or coalition of parties nominating the candidate pair, or any other individual, group, company, or nongovernmental business entity, in the form of legitimate and non-binding gifts or donations.”

The petitum, Justice Manahan said, is in fact closely related to not only the norm of Article 325 of Law No. 7 of 2017 as its reference, but also to Article 327, Article 328, paragraph (4) (Article 334-339) on the Campaign Funding Report and the criminal provision of the Election Law.

"Even if the Petitioners\' petition was declared valid that it were later granted, the petition would actually damage the construction of regulations regarding campaign funds, so the Petitioners\' petition should be declared legally groundless," he explained.

In addition, said Justice Manahan, the Court had examined and found that there was no relevance between the reasons for the petition (posita) and the matter requested to be decided by the Court (petitum). As such, the Petitioners’ petition is unclear or obscure. (Arif Satriantoro/LA/Yuniar Widiastuti)