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Attorney Ade Wahyudin explaining the subject matters of the petition virtually at a preliminary hearing of the judicial review of Law on Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT), Monday (12/10). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—In response the news site Suara Papua being blocked on November 4–6, 2020, Suara Papua editor-in-chief and chairman of the Alliance of the Independent Journalists (AJI) Arnoldus Belau filed a material judicial review petition of Law No. 19 of 2016 on the Amendment to Law No. 11 of 2008 on Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) to the Constitutional Court. The preliminary hearing of case No. 81/PUU-XVIII/2020 took place on Monday, October 12, 2020 virtually.

At the hearing chaired by Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh, attorney Ade Wahyudin said the Petitioners felt harmed due to the Government’s authority as stipulated in Article 40 paragraph (2b) of the IET Law, which have the Government immense authority to exercise what used to be a court’s authority to enforce law and justice to examine, adjudicate, and rule on allegedly unlawful electronic information and/or documents.

The Petitioners believe such an authority belongs to a court, as stipulated in Article 20 paragraph (2) and Article 25 of Law No. 48 of 2009. Ade added that the Government’s right to terminate access is a restriction to the freedom of speech and information. This authority must be monitored strictly by the court in order to minimize Government’s abuse of power. Ade stressed that the Government’s authority to arbitrarily interpret whether electronic information and/or documents have unlawful content is against the principle of due process of law.

The Petitioners also believe that if the articles were left to be ambiguous and unclear regarding the unlawfulness of electronic information and/or documents, the Government would have the absolute authority to control and monopolize access to information. This will keep the public from receiving and expressing information to monitor the Government through the court.

For those reasons, the Petitioners requested that the Constitutional Court declare Article 40 paragraph (2b) of Law No. 19 of 2016 unconstitutional and not legally binding.

Justices’ Advice

Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra advised the Petitioners to elaborate on their legal standing, as individuals and legal entities have different legal standing. Constitutional Justice Manahan M. P. Sitompul advised that the Petitioners study blocking of sites in other countries. “The Petitioners argued that (blocking) is commonplace in other countries, that in urgent situations law enforcers can be given the power by the law to order the termination of blocking of access to problematic content. This needs further study. Are there any such cases [in Indonesia]?” he asked.

Before concluding the hearing, panel chairman Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh informed that the Petitioners were given 14 workdays to submit the revision by Monday, October 26, 2020 at 13:00 WIB.

Writer: Utami Argawati
Editor: Lulu Anjarsari
PR: Andhini S. F.
Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 10/14/2020 13:03 WIB

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian version, the Indonesian version will prevail.

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