Constitutional Justices Saldi Isra, Wahiduddin Adams, and Suhartoyo opening the petition revision hearing of judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Monday (6/6/2022). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

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Monday, June 6, 2022 | 15:05 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The Constitutional Court (MK) held another judicial review hearing of Article 173 paragraph (1) of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law) petitioned by the Just and Prosperous People's Party (Prima). The second hearing for case No. 57/PUU-XX/2022 was presided over by Constitutional Justices Saldi Isra, Wahiduddin Adams, and Suhartoyo on Monday, June 6, 2022 in the panel courtroom.

One of the Petitioner’s legal counsels, Togu Van Basten, conveyed the revisions to the petition, including to the Court’s authority, in which the Petitioner had added Law No. 12 of 2011; the authority of the general chairman and secretary of the party; and affirmation to the Petitioner’s constitutional impairment due to the a quo norm, which allegedly potentially led to different treatment to the Petitioner compared to that to political parties that passed the selection process in the last election. He added that the Petitioner had added an explanation in the subject matter that the petition was not similar to previous petitions.

“Then, in the background to the petition, the Petitioner asserts that the administrative selection has met the requirement to participate in the next election. If this forceful act upon political parties remains, the history of authoritarian power will repeat itself. This will make it impossible for other parties to participate in the state life. Therefore, out of the fourteen parties that made it to the factual verification, all passed. This shows that such an administrative validation was sufficient,” he said remotely.

Also read: Just and Prosperous People's Party Challenges Provision on Party Verification

The Petitioner claimed that factual verification required of non-parliamentary political parties in order to meet the verification stage for the 2024 Election was unfair because the parties that had passed the parliamentary threshold in the 2019 Election were established and relatively superior in terms of structure, infrastructure, and finances than non-parliamentary ones such as the Just and Prosperous People's Party. Such a preferential treatment led to differing preparedness among parties. Therefore, the determination of factual verification of political parties is no longer relevant in guaranteeing the participation of political parties in elections as mandated by Article 22E paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution.

The Petitioner believed the rationale sufficient to compel the Court to review and improve Article 173 paragraph (1) of the Election Law by stating it unconstitutional as long as it is not interpreted as ‘A Political Party Contesting in an Election is a legal entity political party that has passed administration verification by the KPU.’

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

Translation uploaded on 6/7/2022 08:05 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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