The Petitioner’s attorney Muhammad Isnur delivering the petition revision in the judicial review Law Number 19 of 2019 on the Second Amendment to Law Number 30 of 2002 on the Corruption Eradication Commission, Wednesday (8/1) in the Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the second judicial review hearing of Law Number 19 of 2019 on the Second Amendment to Law Number 30 of 2002 on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in the Plenary Courtroom of the Constitutional Court. The case No. 79/PUU-XVII/2019 was petitioned by Agus Rahardjo, Laode Muhamad Syarif, and Saut Situmorang. When filing the petition to the Court, they were KPK leaders.

In this second hearing, the Petitioners through Muhammad Isnur, one of the attorneys, conveyed several points of revision, especially related to the arguments. The Petitioners argued that when discussing changes to the two KPK Laws, lawmakers did not involve the KPK and the people. In addition, the plenary session did not reach a quorum. The Petitioners included video evidence in support of their argument. 

The Petitioners then elaborated on the fact that lawmakers used fictitious academic texts and did not meet the requirements when planning the changes to the two KPK Laws. "We found that the [alleged] academic texts of 2019 were all academic texts [from 2011]," Isnur explained before the hearing led by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat, with Constitutional Justices Suhartoyo and Wahiduddin Adams. 

Hurried

Another attorney Agil Oktaryal also showed a diagram illustrating showing the hurried process of the formation of the norms. Agil revealed that during the evaluation of 2019 National Legislative Program (Prolegnas) priority list, the KPK Law was not discussed at all. 

"We include [evaluation dates] of May 28, 2019; July 4, 2019; July 5, 2019; August 1, 12, 2019; and September 9 2019; then September 17 2019. Out of the 6, at least 5 evaluations of the 2019 Prolegnas priority list, the KPK Law was not included," said Agil. 

The Petitioners argued that lawmakers did not show good faith in drafting the second amendment to the KPK Law, resulting in potential constitutional losses to citizens. According to them, the discussions of the KPK bill (RUU) were hurried for approval, which might be a factor in the large number of formal defects and ambiguities in the KPK Law. In fact, legally, Article 50 paragraph (3) of Law No. 12/2011 stipulates that the House (DPR) is to begin discussing a bill as referred to in paragraph (1) within 60 (sixty) days since the President\'s letter is received.  (Sri Pujianti/NRA)

Translated by: Yuniar Widiastuti