Virtual ruling hearing of the material judicial review of Law No. 16 of 2004 on the Attorney General’s Office, Tuesday (1/25/2022). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2022 | 14:16 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The judicial review petition of Article 1 point 1, Article (2) paragraph (1), Article 17, Article 19 paragraph (2), and Article 20 of Law No. 16 of 2004 on the Attorney General’s Office was declared inadmissible in the Constitutional Court (MK) Decision No. 61/PUU-XIX/2021 read out at a ruling hearing on Tuesday, January 25, 2022. Chief Justice Anwar Usman presided over the hearing alongside the other eight constitutional justices in the plenary courtroom.

In its ruling for the petition filed by 13 law enforcement activists of various professions, the Court issued several legal considerations, read out by Constitutional Justice Suhartoyo. For Petitioner I, a prosecution analyst at the Tojo Una-Una District Prosecutor’s Office, who had said that all provisions on the Attorney General’s Office impacted their constitutional rights and elaborated on their constitutional impairment, the Court ruled, “Therefore, regardless of whether the unconstitutionality of the norm petitioned is proven or not, the Court is of the opinion that Petitioner I had legal standing to file the petition.”

However, the Court believed Petitioners II-XIII could not elaborate their specific, actual, or potential constitutional impairment, so it ruled them lacking the legal standing to file the petition.

Also read: Activists Question Prosecution’s Independence

The Court stated that since the a quo law was enacted, part of the materials in Law No. 16 of 2004 had been amended, thus null and void. As such, Justice Suhartoyo added, the law petitioned by the Petitioners was different from the Law No. 16 of 2004 that was still in effect. A law that was made the object of the petition must be a unity. In other words, the Petitioners’ petition no longer had the same object. Moreover, most of the norms they petitioned had been amended in Law No. 11 of 2021. “Therefore, based on the legal facts considered in the above, the Court is of the opinion that the petition has lost its object,” Justice Suhartoyo said.

Also read: Activists Affirm Prosecution’s Independence in Case on Attorney General’s Office Law

The Petitioners questioned the normative position of the Attorney General’s Office in Indonesia’s administration. They simply wish for it to have strong structural independence to avoid external intervention. The Petitioners argue that the label of the Attorney General’s Office as a ‘government institution’ in Article 2 paragraph (1) and Article 19 paragraph (2) of the a quo law on the mechanism for appointing the attorney general without a fit and proper test by the House of Representatives (DPR) potentially causes disruption to the structural independence of the Attorney General’s Office in its main function related to judicial power or the law enforcement, i.e. prosecution. Of course, this is contrary to the principle of the independence of the judicial power as regulated in Article 24 paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution, where the judicial power is an independent power to administer justice to uphold law and justice.

The Petitioners believe the provision on the appointment and dismissal of the attorney general in Article 19 paragraph (2) of the Attorney General’s Office Law may allow the president as a political organ, either for personal interest or for certain groups, to intervene in the implementation of the Attorney General’s Office’s law enforcement function because, based on the provision, a person can be appointed and dismissed as attorney general unilaterally by the president without prior approval from the House.

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

Translation uploaded on 01/26/2022 15:45 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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