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Wednesday, April 7, 2021 | 16:07 WIB

Secretary-General M. Guntur Hamzah speaking at a webinar organized by the Supreme Court to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the state administrative court, Wednesday (7/4/2021) from the Constitutional Court. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The Constitutional Court’s (MK) Secretary General M. Guntur Hamzah spoke at a webinar on “Judicial Control over Authority Abuse by State Agencies and/or Officials after Job Creation Law” on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. The webinar was organized by the Supreme Court to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the state administrative court.

“I’m honored to be able to speak at this event on the judicial control over authority abuse by state agencies and/or officials from various perspectives,” he said.

He explained judicial control over state officials from the perspective of state administrative law. He said that judicial control is an absolute necessity to correct the any abuse of authority and enforce the principles of good governance.

“In this context, we must ensure that state administrative law becomes a juridical instrument for the court to provide citizens with legal protection against any abuse of authority,” he stressed.

He went on to explain the aspects of judicial control. Judicial control prevents digressions of the implementation of state duties. It is one of the duties of the judiciary in assessing whether a government action is legitimate or not.

Guntur added that judicial control is the authority of a body outside the government or the court to keep administrative actions within the limits of the law. Judicial control oversees government actions not only in relation to the decisions that the government makes, but also matters outside those decisions, including judicial review. In addition, Guntur said, judicial control implies that citizens can 'challenge' wrong administrative actions in the court.

Guntur said judicial control is meant to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens by ensuring the legality of administrative actions. He added that in constitutional democracies, the court is designed to be a “referee” that not only prevents violations of the law and punish those who commit them, but also protects citizens’ rights.

Pillars of Modern State

To highlight the importance of judicial control over government officials, Guntur quoted legal expert Henk Addink’s three pillars of the modern state: rule of law, democracy, and good governance. Addink believes the rule of law in the classical liberal tradition is based on four elements: legality, division and balance of powers, independent judicial control, and protection of fundamental rights.

“Judicial control concerns the rule of law. The rule of law concerns statutory laws. If we understand this, any action by the government must be within the boundaries of the rule of law, as there is judicial control by the judiciary,” Guntur said.

Guntur then talked about how the state administrative law in many countries focuses on four aspects:  ensuring that the public is informed about the requirements, procedures, and costs of governmental affairs; promoting public participation in the government’s decision-making process; ensuring equal treatment in every decision-making process by the government and in the handling of administrative complaints; and promoting the judicial review of legislation in government administration.

Morality of Government

Guntur also talked about Maurice Haurio’s idea of morality in the government. Haurio believed that the idea of good governance was developed to complement the idea of deontologist governance with strong public ethics and morality. A good government is able to anticipate the expansion of the scope of abuse of authority (recours pour excès de pouvoir/REP) which is directly related to the notion of administrative morality—a way of introspection by the government to evaluate its administrative morality.

Guntur believes abuse of authority can be controlled through four steps: administrative control—a system to promote transparency that is based on ICT, management control, self-control, and judicial control.

“Any control over authority abuse by government officials must be developed through a non-punitive system, but by promoting awareness and through improvement. Therefore, I champion restoration over punitive actions,” he stressed.

Writer: Nano Tresna Arfana
Editor: Nur R.

Translator: Yuniar Widiastuti
Editor: NL

Translation uploaded on 4/8/2021 20:38 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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