Deputy Chief Justice Aswanto giving a closing speech at the Constitution Awareness Program for Transformational Teachers Batch II virtually, Thursday (3/31/2022). Photo by Humas MK/Teguh.

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Friday, April 1, 2022 | 15:32 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The manifestation of an understanding of the citizens’ constitutional rights will lead wisdom of the rights in the Constitution. Thus, citizens will not be attacking, fighting with, and judging each other and displaying behavior that is not in accordance with the Constitution, said Deputy Chief Justice Aswanto at the closing ceremony of the Constitution Awareness Program for Transformational Teachers Batch II on Thursday, March 31, 2022 virtually.

Justice Aswanto asserted that the transformational teachers would help students and staff of the school to understand constitutional rights as they had received materials from the Constitutional Court’s program for the last few days.

He added that when the principles of human rights are implemented, there is no justification that the citizens’ constitutional rights are not guaranteed in the constitution. In Indonesia, the 1945 Constitution guarantee them. The provisions that guarantee the citizens’ constitutional rights during the early days after the nation’s foundation were not complete. When the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia was in effect until the implementation of the Provisional Constitution of 1950, human rights in the constitution were continuously debated. To end the long-lasting debates, the government returned to the 1945 Constitution.

“In all four of the Constitutions, there were only 7 articles on human rights. Only after the amendment in 1999-2002 did they receive a good place,” he said.

Also read: Guarantee of Constitutional Rights Develop Following Citizens’ Needs

Justice Aswanto admitted that many variables determine the optimal implementation of constitutional rights. Therefore, citizens must understand them so that they can recognize any violation. As a rule of law, the state has built the judicial review mechanism in order to keep norms in laws to not violate constitutional rights. The Constitutional Court was granted the authority to review laws in the country.

“When Indonesian citizens feel that their rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution are disregarded by a law, the judicial review mechanism in the Constitutional Court can be used. Therefore, the Court’s Pancasila and Constitution Education Center designed materials in this program to improve understanding of citizens’ constitutional rights so that all citizens will be more aware of the Constitution,” he explained.

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Constitutional Awareness

Meanwhile, the Acting Head of the Pancasila and Constitution Education Center (Pusdik) Imam Margono in his remarks said that the Court, which was formed during the Reform, continues to disseminate awareness of constitutional rights to the citizens, including transformational teachers. This is so that the educators can disseminate the awareness to the students, the school staff, and the general public. All 396 participants of the program in 28 provinces hopefully would become principals and school supervisors in the future and become agents of change to help realize the Court’s mission even among the smallest parts of the community.

The event took place for four days, Monday-Thursday, March 28-31, 2022, featuring the best speakers and materials in constitutional law. After listening to the presentations, the participants will be instructed on the technique of drafting judicial review petition and to practice writing one. At the end of the event, their work will be evaluated.

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

Translation uploaded on 4/13/2022 15:29 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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