Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat, Wahiduddin Adams, and Manahan M. P. Sitompul opening the panel preliminary hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2021 on the Harmonization of Taxation Regulations, Monday (1/10/2022). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

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Monday, January 10, 2022 | 17:41 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the preliminary hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2021 on the Harmonization of Taxation Regulations (HPP Law) for case No. 69/PUU-XIX/2021 on Monday, January 10, 2022 in the plenary courtroom. Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat, who chaired the session, said that Petitioner Muhtar Said did not attend the hearing because he wished to withdraw the petition.

“This preliminary hearing is to hear the Petitioner convey his petition verbally, as the petition has been received on Thursday, December 23, 2021. However, based on information from the Court’s Registrar’s Office, the Petitioner sent a text to inform that he would not attend [the hearing] because the petition is being withdrawn,” he said alongside Constitutional Justices Wahiduddin Adams and Manahan M. P. Sitompul.

Justice Arief also said that the withdrawal request letter was received by the Registrar’s Office on December 23, 2021 at 14:12 WIB. The request has been sent in writing and the information of the absence has been received and conveyed at the hearing, which is open to the public.

The Petitioner intended to challenged Law No. 7 of 2021 on the Harmonization of Taxation Regulations (HPP Law) formally. He believed that lawmaking provisions were not regulated in detail in the 1945 Constitution. Article 22A of the 1945 Constitution states that the lawmaking procedure is regulated in Law No. 12 of 2011, meaning that the Constitution delegates the constitutional lawmaking authority to said law. as such, all lawmaking procedure must be in line with Law No. 12 of 2011 without exception, including omnibus laws.

The Constitutional Court has issued a decision that grants a formal judicial review petition on the omnibus law, i.e. Decision No. 91/PUU-XVIII/2020. Since the decision was passed until the a quo petition was filed, Law No. 11 of 2020 on the provision of the lawmaking procedure of the omnibus law had not been revised. Referring to said Court decision, it must be interpreted that omnibus laws are allowed as long as they comply with provisions in Law No. 12 of 2011. This HPP Law is similar to Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation, which the Court ruled should be changed, as it is an omnibus law that violates the lawmaking procedure set in Law No. 12 of 2011.

With those arguments, the Petitioner asserted that the HPP Law was not created in compliance with the lawmaking procedure in the 1945 Constitution and Law No. 12 of 2011. Thus, in the petitum, he requested that the Court declare Law No. 7 of 2021 on the Harmonization of Taxation Regulations in violation of the lawmaking provisions and unconstitutional and, thus, not legally binding.

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

Translation uploaded on 01/11/2022 13:36 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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