Constitutional Justices Saldi Isra, Wahiduddin Adams, and Manahan M. P. Sitompul opening the panel petition revision hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Thursday (9/15/2022). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

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Thursday, September 15, 2022 | 11:00 WIB

JAKARTA (MKRI)—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the second hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law) on Thursday, September 15, 2022 in the panel courtroom. The case No. 80/PUU-XX/2022 was filed by the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), who challenges Article 187 paragraph (1), Article 187 paragraph (5), Article 189 paragraph (1), Article 189 paragraph (5), and Article 192 paragraph (1).

Legal counsels Fadli Ramadhanil conveyed several revisions to the petition, such as the Court’s authority, the elaboration of the articles to review and the contradiction to the 1945 Constitution.

The Petitioner also elaborated their legal standing as an organization that perform studies and give education in order to realize fair election process, as referred to in its deed. They also added literature references and pointed out the inconsistencies of the norms.

“Another revision was the comparison table of election settings from 1999 to the present relating to the regulation of electoral districts, [which] is all under the authority of the [KPU (General Elections Commission)],” Fadli said before the presiding Constitutional Justices Saldi Isra, Wahiduddin Adams, and Manahan M. P. Sitompul.

Most Frequent Irregularities

Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra questioned the most frequent electoral irregularities the Petitioner found. “Upon observation by Perludem, the most [frequent] irregularities are in the preparation of the electoral districts of the DPR or the Provincial DPRD? Apart from new areas not accommodated in it,” he asked.

Heroik Mutaqin Pratama responded that Perludem had found two electoral districts for the DPR: West Java III and South Kalimantan II. In West Java III, Bogor City was combined with Cianjur Regency, when they are not close and there is Bogor Regency between them. Meanwhile, South Kalimantan II had put Banjar City by itself. “For the DPRD, there were violations of territorial integrity principle in DKI Jakarta and Lampung,” he said.

Also read: Perludem Questions Provision on Electoral Districts of New Autonomous Regions in Election Law

In the petition, the Petitioner argued that the preparation of electoral districts must fulfill the principles of people’s sovereignty and direct, public, free, confidential, honest, and fair elections. The Petitioner believe general elections are a means to embody popular sovereignty as enshrined in Article 1 paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution. Therefore, the preparation of electoral districts is one of the important stages at the beginning of the process of general elections. This is to ensure that representation be carried out through general elections in accordance with the principles of honest, fair, proportional, and democratic elections.

They also asserted that the preparation of electoral districts was contrary to the principles and allocation of seats for the House of Representatives (DPR) and the Provincial Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) as regulated in those norms. The main principles are equality of votes, adherence to a proportional electoral system, restriction of seat reallocation, and the formation of new electoral districts for the House and DPRD election in the New Autonomous Region. This norm, Heroik added, regulates the number of seats and regional boundaries in an electoral district of the House election in Appendix III, but does not regulate the mechanism for forming electoral districts for new autonomous regions.

Therefore, in the petitum, the Petitioner requested that the Court grant the entire petition; declare Article 187 paragraph (1) of the Election Law unconstitutional if not interpreted as “An electoral district in an election of members of the DPR shall be a province, a regency/city, or a combination thereof whose formation was based on the provision of Article 185;” declare Article 187 paragraph (5) of the Election Law unconstitutional if not interpreted as “Electoral districts, as mentioned in paragraph (1), and available seats allocated to each district in an election of members of the DPR as mentioned in paragraph (2) shall be described in further detail by Attachment III, an inseparable part of this law” unconstitutional if not interpreted as “An electoral district as referred to in paragraph (1) and the number of available seats for each district for an election of members of DPR as referred to in paragraph (2) shall be regulated in a KPU regulation.”

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

Translation uploaded on 9/19/2022 19:03 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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