Preliminary hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections for case No. 70/PUU-XIX/2021, Wednesday (1/12/2022). Photo by Humas MK/Ilham W.M.

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Wednesday, January 12, 2022 | 00:15 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the preliminary hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law) virtually. The petition for case No. 70/PUU-XIX/2021, was filed by Gatot Nurmantyo, represented at the hearing by legal counsel Refly Harun.

The Petitioner challenges Article 222 of the Election Law, which reads, “A presidential candidate ticket shall be nominated by a political party (or a coalition thereof) contesting in an election that has managed to win at least 20% (twenty percent) of DPR seats or 25% (twenty-five percent) of national valid votes in the previous election of members of the DPR.”

Refly explained to the bench that the Petitioner had once been a Commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (Panglima TNI) and is an Indonesian citizen who has the right to vote based on the Election Law.

“The [argument for] legal standing is that [the Petitioner] is an individual Indonesian citizen and has the right to vote, which might potentially be harmed by the enactment of the presidential threshold that restricts [presidential] candidates and be against other articles in the Constitution,” he said.

The Petitioner believes that Article 222 of the Election Law is in violation of Article 6 paragraph (2) and Article 6A paragraph (5) of the 1945 Constitution, and that presidential threshold not merely procedure, but also substance.

“We filed a simple petition, simpler than one that we have filed before, where we stated that this, [explicitly], regulates the constitutional rights of political parties to nominate presidential and vice presidential candidates as long as they are election contestants, and there is no provision that states that it must be [within] 20% or must meet a certain threshold. It, once again, is a close legal policy that is not related to procedure, but to substance. Therefore, there should be no threshold at all,” Refly stressed.

Justices’ Advice

Deputy Chief Justice Aswanto questioned the petition’s argument. “If there are new arguments, the Court might realize that its legal considerations in Decision No. 53/PUU-XV/2017 missed several things, so that it must change its stance. This, I believe, is important to elaborate so that the Court would be certain that [the petition] is not a repeat of a past case,” he said.

Next, Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih advised the Petitioner on the Court’s jurisdiction. She recommended that the Petitioner add the Judicial Power Law.

“Next, what is the Petitioner’s constitutional impairment, actually? Did he contest [in an election] or was he nominated by a political party? Elaborate that. [The petition] only mentions that the Petitioner lost his constitutional right to nominate as many [election] candidates as possible,” she said.

Meanwhile, Constitutional Justice Suhartoyo observed the petition’s substance or the posita. “If you could find the core of the considerations of Decision No. 74 in the legal standing, you could do so in the substance,” he added. 

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

Translation uploaded on 01/12/2022 14:06 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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