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Saturday, March 13, 2021 | 12:59 WIB

Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra at the review of book “State Institutions” organized by the association of Constitutional Law Advocates, Saturday (13/3/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Agung.

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The book Lembaga Negara (State Institutions) by Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra was reviewed virtually by the association of Constitutional Law Advocates on Saturday morning, March 13, 2021. The event was prefaced by a speech from Justice Saldi, who was the keynote speaker.

“My gratitude to the members of the Association of Constitutional Law Advocates. I’d also like to thank the two reviewers, Fajlurrahman Jurdi and Fitrah Bukhari, as well as Rajawali Press who published the book,” said the professor of law of Andalas University.

Justice Saldi said that writing the book wasn’t easy. The topic was compulsory for both undergraduate and graduate students of constitutional law. “Therefore, I thought that if I wrote a book about state institutions, there must be something that would set it apart from other books such as those at by Prof. Jimly Asshiddiqie, Prof. Ni’matul Huda, and other authors,” he said.

State Institutions in the Constitutional Court’s Decisions

In the end, Justice Saldi found what would set his book apart from other similar ones. “Therefore, I offered something new in this book: state institutions from the perspective of the Constitutional Court’s decisions. This books refers to the Constitutional Court’s decisions starting from its preface—the definition of state institutions, and so on. I also refer to how the Court defines them. The Constitutional Court’s decisions categorizes state institutions into main and supporting ones,” he explained.

The Court refers to a decision on the Judicial Commission—among the state institutions brought forth by the amendment to the 1945 Constitution—for one of its definitions of state institutions. “Whether one agrees to the Court’s decisions or not, at least the Court’s decision on the Judicial Commission became a reference or brought a new understanding of state institutions, in that the Court refers to them as main and supporting ones,” he added.

However, there were differing opinions among constitutional justices in cases on state institutions. For example, right after the amendment to the Constitution, Justice Jimly Asshiddiqie forwent the hierarchy of state institutions. Pre-amendment, the state institutions had been categorized into the highest and high state institutions by the Decree of the Temporary People’s Consultative Assembly (TAP MPRS) No. XX/MPRS/1966.

“Of the elaboration of all state institutions in this book, starting from the definition of state institutions in Chapter I to the Constitutional Court in the last chapter, each chapter contains the Constitutional Court’s decisions that not only affected the definitions of state institutions, but also corrected and adjusted their authorities and functions to the 1945 Constitution,” Justice Saldi explained.

In the second chapter, Justice Saldi states that in some of its decisions, the Constitutional Court adjust provisions in statutory laws to the 1945 Constitution, for example, in the selection of Supreme Court justices. The law stipulates that the Judicial Commission nominates twice as many people as the vacancies.

“The law was then corrected by the Constitutional Court, as the [House] is not authorized to selected the Supreme Court justice nominees, but to approve the ones proposed by the Judicial Commission by implementing a [fit and] proper test,” he explained.

Regional Representatives Council’s Authority

Justice Saldi also mentioned a Court decision on the lawmaking authority of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) in relation to Article 22D of the 1945 Constitution. The decision details the lawmaking process, including the bipartite relation between the DPR (House) and the president as well as the tripartite relation between the DPR, the DPD, and the president.

“Regardless of whether the decision is still debated in terms of the relation between the DPR, the DPD, and the president in the lawmaking process, it has laid a structure of the functions of the three state institutions regarding Article 22D of the 1945 Constitution,” he added.

The book also mentions several decisions that changed provisions related to the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly), the BPK (Audit Board), the Supreme Court, and even the Constitutional Court. “A Constitutional Court decision is related to the Constitutional Court. People debate over [the ethics] of justices deciding on something related to their interest. It’s an everlasting academic debate. However, in practice, the Constitutional Court has touched on it,” he said.

Writer: Nano Tresna A.
Editor: Lulu Anjarsari

Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti
Editor: NL

Translation uploaded on 3/15/2021 17:29 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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