The Petitioners attorney Andi Muhammad Asrun delivering the petition revision in the judicial review hearing of the Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS) Law, Tuesday (3/12) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Gani.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) held another judicial review hearing of Law Number 24 of 2011 on the Social Security Administrative Agency (BPJS Law). The hearing of case No. 72/PUU-XVII/2019 on Tuesday (3/12/2019) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court was led by Deputy Chief Constitutional Justice Aswanto, with Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat and Manahan M. P. Sitompul on the panel.

In the second hearing, retired and active civil servants through attorney Andi Muhammad Asrun conveyed several revision points of the petition, that is, an additional Petitioner, legal standing, and constitutional loss. In the preliminary hearing, the Petitioners challenged five articles: Article 1 number 1, Article 5 paragraph (2), Article 57 letter f, Article 65 paragraph (2), and Article 66. They were revised to only two articles: Article 57 letter f and Article 65 paragraph (2) of the BPJS Law. There was an addition of a retired civil servant Mula Pospos, who suffered a similar constitutional loss to the other petitioners.

Decreasing Benefits

Attorney Asrun elaborated the loss suffered by the Petitioners in a table that shows the extreme decline of the Petitioners’ income or pension benefits.

"So, if the old age and pension benefits program of PT Taspen were transferred to the Employment BPJS, then the Petitioners would only be paid [with] the amount of accumulated contributions and the results of its development. If the results of the development were zero, then they would only receive the accumulated contributions. If they paid only 12 months, [they received contributions for] only 12 months, [which] is different from when it was still managed by PT Taspen," explained Asrun, next to a principal petitioner. 

The Constitutional Court decision No. 96 of 2017 in relation to the legality of PT Taspen, Asrun added, shows causal verband  relation between the potential loss and the enactment of the norm. If the Court declared the a quo norms not legally binding, the potential loss would not occur.

In the preliminary hearing, the Petitioners said that they felt that their constitutional rights have been impaired due to decreasing benefits and services due to the transfer of the TASPEN program, which so far has benefited the Petitioners, to BPJS. According to them, the government’s policy or legal politics separates the management of social security for civil servants and for others. This is stated in PP 45/2015 in conjunction with PP 46/2015, which confirms that the Implementation of the Old Age Benefits and Pension Benefits for Participants among employers of state administrators is excluded from the PP and is mandated to be regulated in a separate government regulation. 

According to the Petitioners, lawmakers intended that the implementation of the pension and old age benefits program for civil servants and state officials (employees who work for state administrators) be carried out separately from the management of that for employees who works private employers. The Petitioners feel there will be potential loss of rights in that the benefits obtained through participation in the pension and old age benefits program will disappear along with the enactment of the provisions of the articles. (Sri Pujianti/LA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti