Petitioners Syamsul Bachri Marasabessy and Yoyo Effendi (left to right) conveying the revision petition on Monday (7/10) to the Constitutional Court Justices. Photo by Humas MK/Dedy.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the second judicial review hearing of Law Number 7 of 2017 on General Elections in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court on Monday (7/10//2019). The hearing of case No. 47/PUU-XVII/2019 was petitioned by five Petitioners, including Syamsul Bachri Marasabessy, Djefry Tuanany, and Yoyo Effendi. The Petitioners argue that Articles 419, 420, 421, and 422 of the Election Law are contradictory to Article 27 paragraph (1), Article 28D paragraph (3), and Article 28I paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution.

In the hearing, Petitioner Yoyo stated that he had revised the petition on a number of things. First, the Petitioners, originally five people, are now two people, Syamsul Bachri Marasabessy (Petitioner I) and Yoyo Effendi (Petitioner II). Secondly, the Petitioners emphasized that the constitutional loss they had suffered is related to election rules. Third, the judicial review is focused on Article 419 and Article 420 of the Election Law, which contains methods of converting votes in elections.

"So, Article 419 and Article 420 of the Election Law significantly caused losses [to the Petitioners] as citizens due to discriminatory treatment," Yoyo said before the bench chaired by Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih, with Constitutional Justices Suhartoyo and Saldi Isra.

The a quo norms factually causes the Petitioners’ political rights to vote in the general elections ignored. In particular, in the 2019 General Elections their votes were not converted into seats, resulting in the termination of legal relationship between the votes of the Petitioners and the election of DPR (House) or DPRD (Regional Legislative Council) members sitting in parliament.

In a concrete case in the 2019 Elections, the Petitioners found that many citizens had been prohibited from voting because they had not been registered in the permanent voters list (DPT). Thus, as a member of the KPU during the 2019 Elections, he gave permission to unregistered citizens to cast their votes, leading to his dismissal from KPU.

According to them, the legislation should have given citizens the right to exercise their voting rights so that administrative requirements of the law must not limit the public from voting if they are registered. (Sri Pujianti/NRA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti