Constitutional Justice Wahiduddin Adams giving a public lecture to the academic community of the Law Faculty of Sriwijaya University on “The Protection of Citizens’ Constitutional Rights in the Pandemic” virtually and onsite, Saturday (10/9/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Ilham W. M.

---

Saturday, October 9, 2021 | 17:18 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—Curbing COVID-19 not only affects healthcare, but many factors, both directly and indirectly. This includes limitation or reduction of constitutional rights that the Constitution guarantees, said Constitutional Justice Wahiduddin Adams at a public lecture and the inauguration of Smart Board Mini Courtroom at Sriwijaya University, Palembang, South Sumatera.

He said that the Constitution has two provisions on the limitation or reduction. Article 28I paragraph (1) is a derogation clause, or a reduction clause, which reads, “Rights to live, not to be tortured, right of freedom of mind and heart, right to have a religion, right not to be slaved, right to acknowledged as an individual before the law, and right not to be sued based on the retroactive law shall be human rights that cannot be reduced in any condition.”

In the context of COVID-19 mitigation, he added, the government has never announced a state of “emergency.” The citizens’ constitutional rights were never derogated or reduced, but they can be limited to mitigate the pandemic. This is done not without supervision as such a limitation can only take place within certain boundaries.

The limitation of the citizens’ constitutional rights is related to the government’s effort to suppress the increase of patients exposed to COVID-19, which does not result in the complete lockdown of cities or strict restrictions on community activities to their respective homes. In this context, the legal debate regarding such a limitation is not very prominent because the government does not strictly implement lockdown policy as other countries do.

However, Justice Wahiduddin added, COVID-19 has provoked legal debates in macroeconomic management. Massive budget diversions by the government for its mitigation has forced other sectors to save budgets.

He ended his presentation by informing that the Court has also reviewed laws on government policies regarding the pandemic, which could be an interesting topic for students to study.

Writer        : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 10/11/2021 17:10 WIB

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

---