Secretary-General M. Guntur Hamzah opening the National Moot Court Competition VII, Thursday (11/11/2021) at Tarumanagara University. Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

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Thursday, November 11, 2021 | 14:43 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court (MK) M. Guntur Hamzah officially opened the National Moot Court Competition VII on Thursday, November 11, 2021. The event, which took place both onsite and virtually, was a collaboration with Tarumanagara University (Untar). The winners would receive trophies of the Chief Constitutional Justice. Chairman of Tarumanagara Foundation Management Gunardi, Rector Agustinus Purna Irawan, and Law Faculty Dean Amad Sudiro were in attendance.

The moot court at the competition, he said, simulated the Court’s hearings. As such, it also simulated the remote court hearings with the latest information technology, with the jury panel located at the university’s campus, while the participants from their respective residences.

Guntur congratulated 12 participants who passed the elimination round. He hoped their achievement would be a milestone for them and an impetus to showing their best performance in all aspects of the competition—demonstration, knowledge on procedural law, and mastery of the material. He also said the competition was not just about winning or losing, but it should be a learning moment.

“Any win is a reflection of your hard work. If you haven’t won, adopt a positive attitude that you’ve undergone a learning process that will challenge you to keep learning and working hard to show a better performance in future competitions,” he said.

National Seminar

This competition, Guntur said, was hand in hand with the national seminar on “Guarantee on Water Needs: Implementation of State Control Policy of and Right to Water.” Right to water is an interesting and relevant issue to discuss as it is a basic needs and a requirement for decent living, health, and welfare standards, Guntur said.

“Because water is related to a person’s right to live and cannot be separated from human rights. The right to water does not come from the state, but from human existence itself. Therefore, the state controls water management as a manifestation of the right to control. This is enshrined in Article 33 paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution, so that the right can be maintained and guaranteed for all people. It cannot be removed by anyone because the right to water is a natural right,” said Guntur in the seminar in which other panelists such as Minister for the Environment of the National Unity Cabiner in1999-2001 Alexander Sonny Keraff and Sigit Hanandjaja Djuga Pramana from the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry also speak.

Elimination Round

Head of the Public Relations and Protocol Bureau Heru Setiawan reported that the stages of the moot court competition was the same as that in previous years—announcement, registration, document selection, opening along with the national seminar, elimination round, final round, concluded by the handing over of rotating trophies of the chief constitutional justice. At the first stage, the committee received 32 dossiers online. The jury then narrowed it down to 12 in the elimination round.

“The judging is carried out objectively by researchers of the Constitutional Court. In this selection, 12 teams passed, including [teams from] the State University of Semarang, the University of Lampung, Udayana University, and Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University,” he revealed.

The 12 competing teams that passed the elimination round had previously received some training from the Court, which presented Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat and researcher Pan Mohammad Faiz, to expand their knowledge and information. Three teams will go into the final round. The event will then be concluded with the announcement of the winner and the handing of the rotating trophies.

The National Moot Court Competition of 2021 will take place for three days (Thursday-Saturday, November 11-13, 2021) to win the trophies of the Chief Constitutional Justice. The seventh annual event is a means to introduce constitutional values to university students, to provide them with insight on the Constitution, to contribute to the development of constitutional law, and to introduce the procedural law of the Constitutional Court.

Writer        : Sri Pujianti
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 11/15/2021 09:10 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.

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