The Petitioners’ legal counsel Zainudin Paru appearing before the Court at the judicial review hearing of the Election Law, Tuesday (7/26/2022). Photo by Humas MK/Bayu.
Tuesday, July 26, 2022 | 17:04 WIB
JAKARTA, Public Relations—The threshold of 20% of DPR (House of Representatives) seats or 25% of valid national votes as referred to in Article 222 of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law) has kept The Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) from nominating presidential ticket candidates. The article reads, “A presidential candidate ticket shall be nominated by a political party (or a coalition thereof) contesting in an election that has managed to win at least 20% (twenty percent) of DPR seats or 25% (twenty-five percent) of national valid votes in the previous election of members of the DPR.”
This compelled the party—represented by president Ahmad Syaikhu, secretary-general Aboe Bakar, and advisory council chairman Salim Segaf Aljufri—to file a judicial review petition to the Constitutional Court (MK). The Registrar’s Office recorded it as petition No. 73/PUU-XX/2022. The preliminary hearing took place on Tuesday, July 26, 2022 in the plenary courtroom.
The Petitioners’ legal counsel Zainudin Paru said, based on the Constitutional Court’s decision on the legal standing for cases relating to the presidential threshold, the PKS has legal standing to file the petition since they had contested in the 2019 Election.
He added that, based on Article 6A paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution, the party has a constitutional right to nominate presidential ticket candidates. However, due to the high threshold, they could potentially lose that right, given that they had 7.1% of seats in the House and 6.79% of valid national votes in the 2014 Election as well as 8.21% of seats in the House and 8.7% of valid national votes in the 2019 Election.
“As a minority opposition in the House, it is hard [for the PKS] to propose evaluation of this important issue. Presidential threshold is a public issue with high constitutional urgency. No fewer than 30 petitions on it have been lodged to the Constitutional Court. Therefore, Petitioner I requested that the Court allow for the discussion on the subject matter of the petition by accepting Petitioner I as a legal entity that has constitutional impairment due to the enactment of Article 222 of the Election Law,” Zainudin explained before Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat (panel chair), Saldi Isra, and Enny Nurbaningsih.
PKS’ Presidential Candidate
Zainudin also explained the legal standing of Salim Segaf Aljufri (Petitioner II), an individual citizen and the advisory council chairman of the PKS, who had been nominated as a presidential candidate for the 2024 Election at the fourth advisory council meeting of 2021. The Court, he reasoned, had declared in Decision No. 66/PUU-XIX/2021 that an individual citizen could have legal standing in such a case when they are able to prove endorsement by a political party. If the presidential threshold set in Article 222 of the Election Law had not been too high, the impairment of the political right to be candidate, which is regulated in Article 27 paragraph (1) and Article 28D paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution, that Petitioner II experienced would not occur.
“The high presidential threshold has resulted in real impairment for Petitioner II, making him unable to be nominated by Petitioner I. In relation to that, the Petitioner requested the reduction of the presidential threshold with an interval range based on a scientific study on the effective numbers of parliamentary parties (FNPP),” Zainudin said.
In its petitum, the PKS requested that the Court declare Article 222 of the Election Law along the phrase “… that has managed to win at least 20% (twenty percent) of DPR seats or 25% (twenty-five percent) of national valid votes in the previous election of members of the DPR” unconstitutional and not legally binding if the threshold go over an interval of 7% to 9% of DPR seats.
Constitutional Argument
Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra advised the Petitioners to elaborate who have the authority to represent the PKS in and out of court and to submit its statute/bylaw in order to clarify their legal standing. He also asked them to elaborate on the FNPP, which they argued could be an alternative for the threshold.
“Submit the alternative [numbers] and the constitutional argument supporting the 7-9%. The Court needs proof of the use of this theory and the basis for using it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih asked the Petitioners to elaborate Article 60 of the Constitutional Court Law and Article 78 of the Constitutional Court Regulation No. 2 of 2021, which stipulate that a petition must follow the principle of ne bis in idem, since similar petitions have been ruled with various legal considerations. The Petitioners must elaborate the difference in their background more specifically.
Then, Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat questioned the Petitioners’ legal standing as a political party that participated in the discussion of the Election Law, had met the provision, and had contested in the 2019 Election.
Before concluding the hearing, Justice Arief inform the Petitioners that they had until Monday, August 8 to revise the petition and would be informed of the next hearing by the Registrar’s Office.
Writer : Sri Pujianti
Editor : Nur R.
PR : Tiara Agustina
Translator : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 7/27/2022 13:48 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.
Tuesday, July 26, 2022 | 17:04 WIB 237