Photo session in the Meeting of Secretaries General of the AACC. Photo by Humas MK/Ganie.

BALI, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court— Secretaries general of the constitutional courts and similar institutions affiliated to the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts and Equivalent Institutions (AACC) held a closed meeting in Bali on Saturday (2/11/2019). AACC member countries, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Thailand, Turkey, and Uzbekistan attended the meeting.

In the meeting chaired by Chief Registrar of the Federal Court of Malaysia Ahmad Terrirudin Mohd Saleh, a number of issues were discussed. The Permanent Secretariats of the AACC—the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia (MKRI), the Constitutional Court of Turkey, and the Constitutional Court of South Korea delivered their reports. Speaking on behalf of the MKRI as the Permanent Secretariat for Planning and Coordination, Head of the Public Relations and Protocol Bureau Heru Setiawan delivered four issues in his report in relation to work program. One of which is the improvement of the official AACC website (www.aacc-asia.org).

"The website serves as an information center of the AACC for the association and its member countries [providing] detailed, updated information, including the activities of all AACC members, to landmark decisions. We have also provided one username and password, for which each country was given access to make updates related to [their] constitutional court. We learned that several countries have actively participated in improving the website," Heru explained.

Heru also touched on the administrative support for additional AACC members. The MKRI, he added, had submitted proposals for AACC membership offers to several countries in Asia, including Cambodia, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Qatar, Sri Lanka, and India. Subsequently, the Maldives and India had submitted applications to become AACC members. The applications were accepted by the AACC members who were present at the Meeting of the Secretaries General.

At the meeting, Heru also conveyed request for support from AACC members for the MKRI to host two major conferences: the World Conference of Constitutional Justice (WCCJ) congress and the Asian-African Conference on Constitutionalism. He stated that the 5th WCCJ Congress was supposed to be held in Algeria in 2020, but was changed to 2021 because Algeria will hold the presidential election and the Conference of Constitutional Jurisdictions of Africa (CCJA) congress. "In relation to this, the MKRI is still volunteering as host of the 6th WCCJ congress. And (the countries) who volunteered are Indonesia and Canada. [We request your] support so that the WCCJ congress will be held in Asia," he said.

Heru added that the Asian-African Conference on Constitutionalism is a follow-up on the memorandum of understanding between the AACC and the CCJA. "The MKRI plans to hold the Asian-African Conference on Constitutionalism. [We request] support from AACC members," he said. The proposal was received unanimously by the AACC members in attendance. (LA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti