Constitutional Justices Wahiduddin Adams, Saldi Isra, and Suhartoyo with Chief Registrar Muhidin giving public lectures at the Galunggung Law School of Tasikmalaya on its 47th anniversary, Wednesday (12/22/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Ilham W.M.

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Wednesday, December 22, 2021 | 15:13 WIB

TASIKMALAYA, Public Relations—On its 47th anniversary, the Galunggung Law School (STHG) presented public lectures on Wednesday, December 22, 2021 in Tasikmalaya. Constitutional Justices Wahiduddin Adams, Saldi Isra, and Suhartoyo with Chief Registrar Muhidin gave public lectures on “The Constitutional Court’s Jurisdiction in Strengthening the Constitutional System and Democracy in Indonesia,” which Tasikmalaya vice regent Cecep Nurul Yakin and the Communication Forum of the Regional Government of Tasikmalaya attended.

Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra delivered the first lecture and invited the participants to understand the context of judicial power in Indonesia. The relationship between branches of power is described in the Constitution, he said. There are three branches of state power: the executive, legislative, and judiciary. The judiciary should not be interfered with.

“So the legislature makes rules in the form of laws, the executive implements them, and in the event of any debate between the two, the judiciary will resolve it. So, the judiciary is an independent power and was built by the state with no intervention from anywhere,” Justice Saldi said.

He went on to explain about the checks and balances function that is within the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction, which had been proposed since the formulation of the Constitution by the nation’s founders. At that time, Moh. Yamin suggested that the Supreme Court be granted the authority to review laws against the Constitution because he believed there would be very possible to formulate legal norms that were not in accordance with the Constitution. However, Soepomo objected to this idea because the number of legal scholars were limited and, according to him, this would place the Supreme Court in a higher position than the legislatures. This idea was then put on hold until the Reform happened and the 1945 Constitution were amended in 1999–2002.

“This idea by Moh. Yamin re-emerged because of the needs and new trend since the 1980s, where many countries in the world established an institution with a different jurisdiction from the Supreme Court, so empirically there was a motivating factor for the birth of the Constitutional Court. In addition, factually at the Indonesian Supreme Court, there was an extraordinary accumulation of cases so it would have been difficult to resolve many of these cases. Therefore, it was agreed that a new judicial institution, the Constitutional Court, be established,” he said in the first session, preceding Constitutional Justice Suhartoyo’s lecture. 

Interagency Authority Disputes

Meanwhile, Constitutional Justice Wahiduddin Adams gave the first lecture about the Constitutional Court’s authority to resolve interagency authority disputes (SKLN) in the second session. He said that the Court had only resolved 29 or 1% of SKLN cases with procedural law based on the Constitutional Court Regulation (PMK) No. 8 of 2006. The stages of SKLN hearings—preliminary hearing, examination hearings, ruling hearing—is based on Article 11 of the Constitutional Court Law No. 8 of 2006.

The litigants should note that SKLN hearings are open for public, similar to judicial review hearings. The closed sessions in the Constitutional Court are only the justice deliberation meeting (RPH), in which the rulings on the cases are discussed.

Litigating in the Constitutional Court

Chief registrar Muhidin in his presentation talked about the Court’s procedural law. He explained that litigating in the Constitutional Court is free of charge, and can be done online from campuses that the Court appointed. This, he said, is to facilitate all the parties involved.

“Therefore, the Court allows the public to file a petition to the Court. However, the public must understand who can file a case, which can be found on the Court’s website mkri.id, which is readily accessible from anywhere and at any time,” he added.

Writer        : Sri Pujianti
Editor        : Nur R.
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 12/29/2021 09:25 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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