Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat in a bilateral meeting with the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic on Wednesday (2/10) in Brno, the Czech Republic. Photo by Humas MK/Noel.

BRNO, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The delegation of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia (MKRI) led by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat had a bilateral meeting and judicial dialog with the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic on Wednesday (2/10/2019), Brno, 3 hours from the capital Prague. Justice Arief, along with Indonesian Ambassador to the Czech Republic Kenssy Dwi Ekaningsih, stated that the delegation intended to exchange ideas and experiences and establish a cooperation between with a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

The delegation was welcomed by the President of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic Pavel Rychetský and his vice Jaroslav Fenyk, who after studying the authorities and progress of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia concluded that there are many similarities between the duties and authorities of both institutions, in terms of the authority of judicial review, dissolution of political parties, interagency disputes, and to opinions on the impeachment of the head of state. "However, we have two authorities that the Constitutional Court of Indonesia does not yet have," Pavel said, referring constitutional complaint and the judicial review of treaties before ratification by the Czech government.

Rychetský said that those authorities, specifically constitutional complaint, led to the number of cases per year reaching approximately 4000 cases. This is admittedly quite overwhelming for the Czech Court in arranging the time to settle constitutional complaints. Constitutional courts that have the authority of constitutional complaint usually have a lot of pending cases.

Rychetský also revealed that the authority to review treaties is a new authority since the Czech Republic joined the European Union. He explained that this authority is quite unique because sometimes there is friction between regulations in the European Union and the Constitution of the Czech Republic.

In response, Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat expressly stated that the Indonesian Constitutional Court is a guardian of ideology. "Laws and regulations or treaties could deviate from the Pancasila ideology, but the Court will not mess with it," he said. He said that the ideology of Pancasila is the most appropriate for the people of Indonesia.

Closing the meeting, Justice Arief offered the Vice Constitutional Court President Prof. Jaroslav Fenyk to deliver a public lecture at the 2019 International Symposium in Bali. He hoped that Prof. Fenyk can share experiences and challenges in resolving constitutional complaints.

In response to the offer, Rychetský stated that they would immediately discuss with all constitutional judges to ensure the best response related to offer of public lecture and MoU engagement, which would have implications for the participation of the Czech Constitutional Court as Chairman of the Conference of European Constitutional Courts to give support to the Indonesian Constitutional Court to host the 6th Congress of the World Conference on Constitutional Justice (WCCJ) planned for 2024. (NL/NRA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti