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Chief Constitutional Justice Anwar Usman with Secretary General M. Guntur Hamzah taking a picture with participants of the public lecture at the Law Faculty of Sriwijaya University, Friday (30/8/2019). Photo by Humas MK/Bayu.

PALEMBANG, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court (MK) Anwar Usman delivered a public lecture at the Law Faculty of Sriwijaya University on Friday (30/8/2019) entitled "Election Results Dispute (PHPU) Case Resolution as an Effort to Maintain the Principles of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia." He spoke to hundreds of law students and lecturers, as well as Constitutional Court Secretary General M. Guntur Hamzah; Head of the Center for Research, Case Review, and Library Management Rubiyo; Sriwijaya University Rector Anis Saggaff; and Law Faculty Dean.

In his lecture, Justice Anwar stressed that there were things to understand when working in a judicial institution: it is a job that is prone to slander, even though it is difficult for any judge in any judicial institution to make a decision that could satisfy all parties. "The most important thing is when deciding a case, the judge must base on facts revealed in the hearing, according to the existing provisions," he said.

Justice Anwar said that the 2019 Simultaneous Election attracted considerable attention and drained resources and energy. Some blamed the change in the electoral system, where originally the legislative and presidential elections had been separate, but some said that the simultaneous election was a consequence of the presidential system adopted by the Constitution. "In spite of these differences of opinion, the Constitutional Court has endeavored to resolve its constitutional mandate, to examine and decide upon PHPU cases as well as possible and as fair as possible," he said.

He also stated that however hard a judicial institution works to produce the best decisions, surely the decisions would not satisfy all parties. "There will always be parties who feel disadvantaged over a court decision, and vice versa, there are those who benefit from a decision handed down," he explained.

Justice Anwar added that the most important things in a judicial decision were at least two things: a transparent process and that the decision was made based on objective facts revealed in the hearing. The positive impact of transparency in the hearing process is that objective facts in the hearing are well revealed and recorded, and are conveyed in full to the public.

The Constitutional Court received 1 case of dispute over election results of president and vice president and 260 cases on dispute over election of legislative election originating from 560 different constituencies. Within a very short period of resolution, which is 14 days for resolving disputes over the results of the presidential and vice presidential election, and 30 days for resolving disputes over the results of the legislative election, those disputes were resolved on time.

Meanwhile, in his report, Secretary General M. Guntur Hamzah explained to maintain and develop academic culture, both within the Constitutional Court and in various universities, the Constitutional Court held a workshop on the management of globally-indexed academic journals. 

This workshop was based on the consideration that lecturers in universities and also researchers in the Constitutional Court have an obligation to write and produce good academic papers. The papers must also be published in academic journals that are not only nationally accredited, but also indexed globally.

In addition, Sriwijaya University Rector Anis Saggaff expressed his gratitude to the Court for organizing a workshop on academic journal management at Sriwijaya University. "I personally thank the Court for organizing this workshop. Hopefully [it] will continue to be maintained and useful for all of us," he said. (Bayu/LA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti

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