Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat presenting “The Implementation and Re-actualization of Pancasila Values” at the Constitution Awareness Program for Transformational Teachers Batch I, Tuesday (3/15/2022) at the Pancasila and Constitution Education Center. Photo by Humas MK/Teguh.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 09:01 WIB
BOGOR, Public Relations—The Constitution Awareness Program for Transformational Teachers Batch I commenced on the second day on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 at the Pancasila and Constitution Education Center in Cisarua, Bogor. The event was the result of collaboration between the Constitutional Court (MK) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. Four speakers spoke at the event on Pancasila and the Constitution.
Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat said in his presentation on “The Implementation and Re-actualization of Pancasila Values” that the extraordinary development of information and digital technology has positive and negative impacts. On the positive side, technology makes the world seems limitless. Technological advances transcend space and time, communication between countries, etc. However, technological developments and the development of social media require parents to be cautious for the sake of their children.
“This holds true for society. Negative social media content could can damage society, national culture, and local culture. Social media will make ideological infiltration into Indonesia, which is based on Pancasila, easy,”
Transnational Ideologies
Justice Arief said transnational ideologies affect the nation and state greatly. Therefore, Indonesia must have resilience in culture, economy, politics, and law. Otherwise, the infiltration of foreign ideologies will be very dangerous for the nation and state.
“Foreign ideologies could be “right-wing” such as radicalism, extremism, etc. or “left-wing” such as communism, etc. or individualism, liberalism, etc.,” he said.
He also talked about the impacts of information technology on culture. “In culture, we can see that Indonesian millennials are very much influenced by the K-Pop culture, which [could] erode national cultures. The [Indonesian] millennials, which reach 80 percent [of population], are currently very familiar with foreign cultures. Luckily, we have cultural resilience, we can still watch songs and dances from various parts of Indonesia,” he said.
Ideological Preamble to Constitution
Next, former constitutional justice I Dewa Gede Palguna delivered a presentation on “The Constitution and Constitutionalism.” He quoted Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen’s formal definition of the constitution as a special document containing a set of legal norms whose change must meet special requirements so that the norms are not too easily changed. Then the constitution in a material sense is a set of rules governing the formation of general legal norms, especially laws. Meanwhile, the constitution in the transcendental-logical sense is the basic norm and the constitution in the positive-legal sense is the provisions that enshrined within it.
Justice Palguna then explained the content of the Constitution, starting from the Preamble. “The Preamble to the Constitution is its first relation. It is more ideological rather than legal. It also contains the material of the law to promulgate in the future. In addition, the Constitution not only contains provisions on the organs authorized to make the law and its procedures, but also the content of the law that is allowed and/or prohibited,” he explained.
Constitutionalism, he said, is generally defined as a political philosophy that is based on the idea that the government’s authority comes from the people and must be limited by a constitution that clearly states what the government can and cannot do.
State Administration
Meanwhile, Sebelas Maret University (UNS) law lecturer Agus Riewanto delivered a presentation on “The State Administration System Based on the 1945 Constitution.” He explained that the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution is a level higher than the body of the 1945 Constitution because it contains the text of the Proclamation of Independence of August 17, 1945 and the spirit of the founding of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. It also contains the goals of the state and the state ideology Pancasila, and is the guidelines to formulating the articles of the 1945 Constitution.
He explained that the basis for the state administration is Pancasila. Pancasila is then interpreted further in the 1945 Constitution. Meanwhile, the principle of the state administration is the rule of law. This is based on Article 1 paragraph, “The State of Indonesia shall be a constitutional state.” The rule of law began with Plato’s concept that a good government is based on a good set of laws or nomoi.
“The idea of a rule of law was popular in the 17th century as a result of the political situation in Europe, which was dominated by absolute monarchy,” Agus explained. Meanwhile, the concept of the state developed into two legal systems: the continental European system called Rechtsstaat and the Anglo-Saxon concept of the rule of law.
As such, Agus revealed, there are two types of law-based state. First, the continental European system adopted by Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scandinavian countries. The type emerged because of monarchy absolutism which is focused on the administrative rechtsstaat, where there is the state administrative court and constitutional court, where judges are not limited by jurisprudence, where judges rule based on laws.
This type is different from the second one, the Anglo-Saxon type, which emerged naturally, is focused on the rule of law, is judicial in nature, where there are only general courts, where the judges are bound by jurisprudence, where the judges make the law.
Next, Gadjah Mada University constitutional law expert Andy Omara explained “The Guarantee of the Citizens’ Constitutional Rights According to the 1945 Constitution.” He said that this guarantee is enshrined in Chapter XA of the 1945 Constitution, which regulates human rights (in 10 articles), and in several other articles outside of Chapter XA.
Andy said the state, especially the government, is responsible for the respect, protection, promotion, and fulfillment for/of human rights. What does it mean? “Aside from the Constitutional Court, there are other institutions—the Police, the Attorney General’s Office, the [National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM)], the Ombudsman, the [National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan)], and so on,” he added.
He also said that the human rights in the 1945 Constitution are supported by human rights-related legislation (the People’s Consultative Assembly Decree/TAP MPR on Human Rights, the Human Rights Law) and ratified international convention on human rights.
The Constitution Awareness Program for Transformational Teachers Batch I will take place for four days, Monday-Thursday, March 14-17, 2022 with 350 participants. Several speakers talked about Pancasila and the Constitution at the event.
Writer : Nano Tresna Arfana
Editor : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 3/18/2022 10:18 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.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 09:01 WIB 200