Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat delivering a public lecture to students of the Postgraduate Program of the Law Faculty of Diponegoro University, Saturday (28/11/2020) virtually from Jakarta. Photo by Humas MK.

JAKARTA, Public Relations of the Constitutional Court—In Indonesia’s legal politics, laws are formed by the House (DPR) and the president. Before the 1945 Constitution was amended, the law used to be proposed by the president, but afterward, Article 20 of the 1945 Constitution stipulates that lawmaking is done by the House and the president, said Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat in his virtual public lecture on Indonesia’s legal politics to students of the Postgraduate Program of the Law Faculty of Diponegoro University (UNDIP) on Saturday, November 28, 2020.

He said in the New Order, the 1945 Constitution had been deemed sacred and couldn’t be amended. However, it was amended after the Reform era to avoid government turning authoritarian. Its amendment came about in four stages in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002.

Legal politics, he said, applies for the future. He quoted former Chief Constitutional Justice of 2008-2013 Moh Mahfud MD, who stressed that legal politics concerns how the law is formed and directed in the national politics, as well as the efforts to enforce it.

Justice Arief added that Indonesia’s legal politics is the government’s statement of the direction of the law. In addition, Indonesia’s law stems from Pancasila. “It is imperative that the people analyze the law in Indonesia,” he stressed. At the end of his lecture, he urged the students to elaborate on Indonesia’s legal politics.

Writer: Utami Argawati
Editor: Nur R.
Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 12/05/2020 21:02 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.