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Chief Justice Anwar Usman with Secretary-General M. Guntur Hamzah opening the technical assistance program on the 2020 election of governors, regents, and mayors for the provincial and regency/city Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) virtually, Tuesday (13/10) from the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—Chief Justice Anwar Usman delivered a keynote speech at the opening of the technical assistance program on the 2020 election of governors, regents, and mayors (pilkada) for the provincial and regency/city Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) virtually. The event took place on Tuesday evening, October 13, 2020 at the Pancasila and Constitution Education Center, Cisarua, Bogor.

He was thankful that the program ran despite the pandemic. He also stressed that the central and provincial Bawaslu and the regency/city Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) are key to the success and democratic pilkada. The technical assistance program was aimed at building interagency synergy to realize the mandate of the 1945 Constitution for a democratic rule of law.

Justice Anwar said that democratic government applies all over the word, where the people are involved through elections. The people in such a government hold the state’s sovereignty. “Therefore, only the people have the authority to appoint representatives in legislative and executive public offices. This concept isn’t perfect as the majority comes out a victor, while truth and justice are not only at the hands of the majority, but also the minority. In a democracy, political interest shifts following situational and dynamic direction of the politics. In some cases, political decisions can be transactional,” he explained. Therefore, he added, the constitution serves to guard the democratic process and balance the interests of various groups. This is known as nomocracy. Many countries including Indonesia apply democracy and nomocracy. Regional elections (pilkada) are the implementation of this, making Indonesia a democratic legal state.

He said that pilkada used to be organized by the Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) at the provincial, regency, and city levels, but the amendment to the 1945 Constitution especially Article 18 paragraph (4) along the phrase “shall be elected democratically” made direct regional elections possible. It was then regulated in Law No. 32 of 2004 on the Regional Government.

Biggest Regional Elections

Bawaslu chairman Abhan thanked the Constitutional Court for the program. “The [program] is very important for us to prepare for the things in the pilkada results dispute proceedings, where Bawaslu will be a testifier,” he said. He added that this year’s pilkada is the biggest yet, with 270 regions participating. As an election organizer, Bawaslu must resolve electoral issues to avoid cases ending up at the Constitutional Court.

“It takes our hard work to optimize the preventive and monitoring efforts in resolving 2020 pilkada disputes,” he added.

Improving Understanding of Procedural Law

Secretary-General M. Guntur Hamzah talked about four authorities and one obligation of the Constitutional Court. The Court has done efforts for the success of pilkada dispute resolution, including by offering technical assistance programs on the procedural law in the Constitutional Court to stakeholders that are directly and indirectly involved in the pilkada.

“One of the targeted groups by the programs is members of provincial and regency/city Bawaslu that oversee the legal and advocacy division, who are one of the litigating parties in the 2020 election of governors, regents, and mayors. They are expected to understand the procedural law in the Constitutional Court,” he explained.

The technical assistance program on the 2020 simultaneous elections of governors, regents, and mayors for the provincial and regency/city Bawaslu took place virtually on October 13-15, 2020 to improve the people’s understanding and unify their perception on the Constitution and the procedural law of the 2020 pilkada dispute resolution. The program, especially on the Constitutional Court Regulation (PMK) No. 4 and 5 of 2020 was held so that the resolution of pilkada disputes would run well according to the time frame set by the law.

Writer: Nano Tresna Arfana
Editor: Nur R.
Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 10/30/2020 21:59 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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