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Ruling hearing of the judicial review of the Election Law, Wednesday (23/10) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Gani.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) rejected the entire judicial review petition of Law Number 7 of 2017 on General Elections. The case No. 47/PUU-XVII/2019 was petitioned by Syamsul Bachri Marasabessy and Yoyo Effendi.

“The verdict adjudicated, in the provision, to reject the petition for provision by the Petitioners. [Regarding] the subject of the petition, to reject the entire petition of the Petitioners,” said Chief Constitutional Justice Anwar Usman when chairing the ruling hearing of Decision No. 47/PUU-XVII/2019 on Wednesday (23/10/2019) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court.

The Petitioners were registered as voters in the 2019 Elections and cast their votes to one of the 9 participating political parties that meet the parliamentary threshold in Depok City, dapil (electoral district) 6 of West Java. The Petitioners had questioned the method of determining the seat acquisition regulated in Articles 419 and 420 of the Election Law, which uses the Sainte Lague method.

According to the Petitioners, based on data from the 2019 Elections results, 16,349,823 valid votes or around 12.93% of the votes of all political parties participating in the elections that met the national parliamentary threshold were not entirely converted to seats due to discrimination by election organizers.

The use of the Sainte Lague method in converting votes into seats and their distribution, according to the Petitioners, had caused injustice among political parties. This injustice was reflected in the disproportion between the number of votes obtained by political parties and the number of seats obtained. Several political parties benefited while others were disadvantaged by this. The political parties that benefited received fewer votes but more seats, while the disadvantaged ones received more votes but fewer seats.

The Petitioners also requested a provisional decision requesting the Court to prioritize examining, accepting, and granting the a quo petition before the inauguration of legislators from the 2019 Elections results so that the election organizers would have the opportunity to revise their decision on the determination of seat acquisition of the 2019 legislative election following the decision of the Constitutional Court in this case.

The Court observed that the Petitioners had filed the petition on July 30, 2019 after the vote count had been announced and entered the resolution process of the elections results in the Constitutional Court. Therefore, it was not possible for the petition to be decided before the legislative inauguration. "Therefore the provisional petition by the Petitioners is legally groundless," said Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih reading out the Petitioners\' provisional petition.

In the legal considerations, the Court stated that the dapil arrangement was based on updated population data and regional data. Dapil for the DPR was determined to be province/regency/city, or a combination of regencies/cities. If this arrangement was not possible, the dapil used the regency/city. Meanwhile, the dapil for the provincial DPRD were regencies/cities or a combination of regencies/cities. Meanwhile, the dapil for the regency/city DPRD members are sub-districts or a combination of sub-districts as stipulated in Article 189 paragraph (1) and Article 192 paragraph (1) of the Election Law. For each dapil, the number of seats for each type of election had been determined.

"Constitutionally, the 1945 Constitution does not determine the model for the electoral system. Likewise, [it] does not specify a system model that will be used to determine the price of a seat in an electoral district, whether to use the Sainte Lague system as is currently used by the Election Law or the Hare Quote system, or any other system. The determination of the system to be used is the domain of the regulation of the law as the implementation of the 1945 Constitution," Justice Enny read out the Court\'s legal considerations.

According to the Court, there are no provisions that can be interpreted as discriminatory against election participants and between voters who are entitled to vote. In other words, the provisions apply equally to all parties participating in the election regardless of whether the political party is large or small, or whether it is new or old.

"There is no provision in the a quo norm that obstructs the Petitioners’ right to vote and there are also provision that give discriminating treatment that has caused the Petitioners to lose their right," Justice Enny said, reading out the legal considerations.

The Court was of the opinion that as long as no constitutional principles were violated, the system specified in the Election Law cannot be said to be in conflict with the 1945 Constitution. "Therefore, the Petitioners’ argument about Article 419 and Article 420 along the phrase ‘electoral district’ in Law 7/2017 contradicting the election principles in Article 22E paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution is legally groundless," said Justice Enny. (NRA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti

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