Yusril Ihza Mahendra testifying as an expert for the Petitioner at the judicial review hearing of Law No. 14 of 2005 on Teachers and Lecturers, Tuesday (11/2/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Bayu.

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Tuesday, November 2, 2021 | 16:26 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—Another judicial review hearing of Law No. 14 of 2005 on Teachers and Lecturers was held by the Constitutional Court (MK) on Tuesday afternoon, November 2, 2021. The petition against Article 50 paragraph (4) of the Teacher and Lecturer Law was filed by Sri Mardiyati. The plenary hearing for petition No. 20/PUU-XIX/2021, chaired by Chief Justice Anwar Usman, had been scheduled to hear the Petitioner’s expert and the Relevant Party.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, an expert for the Petitioner, quoted the a quo norm: “Further provisions regarding the selection as referred to in paragraph (2) and the appointment and confirmation of certain levels of academic positions as referred to in paragraph (3) shall be determined by each higher education unit in accordance with statutory regulations.”

The higher education units recognized by the a quo law, he said, are those led by rectors, who are given authority to create rules to implement Article 50 paragraphs (2) and (3).

“Therefore, I believe that any other agency that creates rules to implement the norm, paragraph, and article can formally be declared illegitimate by the Supreme Court because they are created by officials who are not delegated by the law [to do so] and are not based on any authority granted by the law,” Yusril explained.

No National Standard

Yusril believes Article 50 paragraph (4) of the Teacher and Lecturer Law allows for different requirements for the appointment and certification of the academic levels among higher education units. This created an unhealthy situation as there is no national standard for the appointment of lecturers and the certification of academic levels.

The provision on the appointment and certification of academic levels, he said, should be laid out in the law or delegated in a government regulation. That way, the government regulation will delegate necessary technical provisions to implement the provision to the rector of the higher education unit in question.

“Therefore, I believe the phrase ‘each higher education unit in accordance with statutory regulations’ in Article 50 of the Teacher and Lecturer Law is unconstitutional and warrant an annulment by the Court,” Yusril stressed.

UI’s Autonomy

The University of Indonesia (UI) as the Relevant Party responded to the petition through legal counsel Ima Mayasari. In principle, she said, UI has a direct interest in the case. In addition, based on a government regulation, UI is a legal-entity higher education that manages academic and nonacademic matters autonomously. One the autonomy includes the granting of authority to UI’s Board of Professors to assess and approve promotion of associate professors and professors to be followed up by the rector.

“In juridical terms, the follow up by the rector in and out of the university should be certifying and appointing professor candidates as professors because the University of Indonesia was given the autonomy or freedom in academic following the government regulation,” Ima explained.

However, in practice, the government regulation UI uses as a legal basis is not implemented properly due to technical regulations by relevant ministries that reduces UI’s autonomy, such as the Regulation of the Minister of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform No. 17 of 2016 on the Lecture’s Functional Position and Credit Score as amended by the Regulation of the Minister of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform No. 46 of 2013, which granted the Ministry of Education and Culture the supervisory position of the academic positions of lecturers that can authorize promotion.

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The Petitioner is a FMIPA (Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences) lecturer of the University of Indonesia (UI). Her last office is lektor kepala (associate professor). The UI rector recommended her appointment as professor to the Minister of Education and Culture in 2019, after a long selection process in UI, including academic paper assessment by a professor of mathematics from Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). The nomination was denied by the Directorate-General of Higher Education on the ground of the paper not meeting requirements when UI had already approved the paper and its validity assessment results.

The Petitioner asserts that under Article 50 paragraph (4) of the a quo law, the appointment, and confirmation of certain levels of academic positions, including a professorship, is the authority of the higher education unit or the university or the rector. However, due to the minister-assigned 2019 Operational Guidelines for Credit Score Assessment, such an authority falls on the Directorate General of Higher Education.

The Petitioner believes that is because Article 50 paragraph (4) of the a quo law mentions the phrase that the appointment and confirmation of professors is carried out by each unit following statutory regulations. The phrase is multi-interpretive because the Minister of Education and Culture then issued a regulation that grants himself the authority, which violates the substance or intention of Article 50 paragraph (4). Therefore, in the petitum, the Petitioner requested that the Article 50 paragraph (4) of the a quo law be repealed.

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

Translation uploaded on 11/3/2021 08:41 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.

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