Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat reading out the legal considerations of the judicial review of Law Number 7 of 2017. Photo by Humas MK/Hermanto.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) decided that the judicial review petition of Law Number 7 of 2017 filed by Heriyanto (Petitioner I) was null and void. Meanwhile, the petition filed by Ramdansyah (Petitioner II) was not accepted because he did not have a legal standing.

“The verdict adjudicated, declares the petition of Petitioner I dismissed. Declares that the petition of Petitioner II is not accepted,” affirmed plenary hearing chairman Chief Constitutional Justice Anwar Usman next to the other constitutional justices in the pronouncement hearing of Decision No. 29/PUU-XVII/2019 on Thursday (28/11/2019).

The Petitioners work in relation to elections. They challenged Article 473 paragraph (2), Article 474 paragraph (1), Article 523, and Article 488 of the Election Law. According to them, Article 473 paragraph (2) does not open any room for dispute over the threshold and candidates for the House of Representative (DPR), Provincial and District/Municipal Legislative Council (DPRD).

In the legal considerations read out by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat, the Court revealed that Petitioner I did not attend the preliminary hearing held by the Constitutional Court on Wednesday, April 24, 2019, scheduled to listen to the Petitioners\' petition. In addition, Petitioner I also did not attend the second hearing on Thursday, May 9, 2019 to revise the petition. Petitioner I through Petitioner II only sent Letter of Assignment No. 122/ST/Adv.BPN/PS/IV/2019, which, according to the Court, had nothing to do with the principal petition of the Petitioners.

Therefore, according to the Court, Petitioner I was considered not serious in filing the petition for the judicial review of Article 284, Article 473 paragraph (2), Article 474 paragraph (1), Article 501, Article 502, Article 523, Article 488, Article 516, Article 521, and Article 533 of the Election Law against the 1945 Constitution. Therefore, the Court did not consider the petition further insofar as it relates to Petitioner I and the petition was declared null and void.

Justice Arief said the Court also considered Petitioner II, as an independent researcher and electoral activist, proven by the results of a study entitled "The Dark Side of the 2009 Elections" published by the Rumah Demokrasi Publisher in Jakarta in 2010. The Petitioner felt disadvantaged by the enactment of the a quo articles of the Election Law.

According to the Court, Justice Arief added, Petitioner II was unable to specifically describe his constitutional rights that were considered impaired by the enactment of the a quo articles, namely the right to recognition, guarantee, protection, fair legal certainty, and equal treatment before the law, where said loss is clearly causal, both actual and potential, with the norms of the law petitioned for review. Therefore, by itself the requirement that "if the petition of the a quo Petitioner is granted, the impairment of said constitutional rights will not or no longer occur" is not fulfilled. Therefore, the Court was of the opinion that Petitioner II did not have a legal standing to act as a Petitioner in the a quo petition, so that the principal petition of Petitioner II was not considered further. (Nano Tresna Arfana/LA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti