Constitutional Justice Wahiduddin Adams giving a public lecture at the Law Faculty of the Muhammadiyah University of North Sumatera, Saturday (5/21/2022). Photo by Humas MK/Agung.
Saturday, May 21, 2022 | 19:26 WIB
JAKARTA, Public Relations—Constitutional Justice Wahiduddin Adams gave a public lecture on “The Constitution, Constitutional Rights, and the Constitutional Court” for the Law Faculty of the Muhammadiyah University of North Sumatera (UMSU) in the faculty’s auditorium on Saturday, May 21, 2022 in Medan.
Starting his lecture, Justice Wahiduddin encouraged the participants, who were even semester law students, to understand the contents in the constitutions of several countries. The constitution, he said, cannot be separated from the founding of a country. It generally records a nation’s struggle to liberate itself from colonialism. Similarly, paragraphs 1 to 3 of the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution portrays the people’s struggle to be free from colonialism.
Comparably, the preamble to the Constitution of China also contains a fairly long history, starting from the recognition of the feudal era, the 1911 revolutionary struggle led by Sun Yat-sen, to the unification of the Chinese people under the Communist Party commanded by Mao Zedong in 1949. Likewise, the Constitution of South Africa contains acknowledges its nation’s history of apartheid in order to reconcile and dispel the grudges of its dark past.
Next, Justice Wahiduddin said, the constitution may talk about divinity and religion as well as the recognition of the connection between the state and divine values, or the character of the state adopted by the country. For a country that is founded on religion, it is not enough to recognize divine values through the use of normative language, but also a specific language. This can be seen in the Constitutions of Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. Some countries might recognize the power of the trinity and while others adhere to secularism. The preamble to the constitution is a space for a statement of moderate attitude where the states acknowledges universal divine and religious values.
Another content of a constitution is a unique and distinctive state ideology. For example, the Constitution of Turkey, which identifies moral values in the style of Turkey, or France, which laid the foundation of the state—the common ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Similarly, Indonesia shows, in the fourth paragraph of the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution, the national identity with a statement that the structure of the state is based on five basic principles of the state called Pancasila.
“The various constitutions, especially the bodies, include the guarantee of human rights or constitutional rights. The citizens’ rights contained in the constitution come in various terms, some call it human rights or constitutional rights. The difference between the two is only in terms of scope. Constitutional rights only include the rights of citizens regulated in the constitution, because sometimes there are constitutions that do not contain all human rights. For example, the 1945 Constitution before the amendment. The rights of citizens in the Constitution do not cover all things defined as human rights,” Justice Wahiduddin alongside the Head of the Public Relations and National Affairs Department Fajar Laksono.
Constitutional Court
Next, Justice Wahiduddin explained the Constitutional Court, which guards the Constitution, especially by exercising its authority to review laws against the 1945 Constitution. He acknowledged that the Court was often referred to as a super-body because apart from having the freedom to interpret the Constitution, through its decision it also could repeal a law, which the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Government form together. However, this assumption is inaccurate, he asserted. This is because the construction of state institutions according to the 1945 Constitution is no longer hierarchical-structural but horizontal-functional. This means that state institutions in Indonesia are currently equal. Although the Constitutional Court interpret the Constitution, which sometimes forces it to repeal a law, it does not mean that it becomes a super-body, as it seeks to carry out the mandate of the 1945 Constitution to uphold law and justice.
“Therefore, the Constitutional Court provides the widest possible opportunity for the entire community so that they can optimally take advantage of the Court in the Indonesian administration system. When the Court declares that a law is no longer legally binding or is null and void, it is not an indication of the Court’s superiority over the legislative branch of power, but rather its efforts to carry out the mandate given to it by the Constitution to guard and assess the constitutionality of each of these legislative products,” Justice Wahiduddin said.
Writer : Sri Pujianti
Editor : Nur R.
Translator : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 5/24/2022 11:36 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
Saturday, May 21, 2022 | 19:26 WIB 266