The judicial review hearing of Law No. 37 of 2008 on the Ombudsman, Monday (9/19/2022). Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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Monday, September 19, 2022 | 15:52 WIB

JAKARTA (MKRI)—The Constitutional Court (MK) held another material judicial review hearing of Law No. 37 of 2008 on the Ombudsman on Monday, September 19, 2022. The case No. 81/PUU-XX/2022 was filed by Moch. Ojat Sudrajat S., a resident of Banten Province and chairman of the Maha Bidik Indonesia association.

At this second hearing, Constitutional Justice Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh asked the Petitioner to confirm his request to withdrawal the petition, which he had expressed in a letter to the Court. “Mr. Ojat, we’d like you to confirm the withdrawal of the petition,” he requested.

“This is accurate. We sent an email [to the Court’s Registrar’s Office] to withdraw the judicial review case, as we received great recommendation from one of the justice panel members to wait until we receive an inkracht decision from the [state administrative court (PTUN)] in Jakarta and in Serang. We just attended a hearing at the Jakarta PTUN, whose proceedings are still ongoing,” the Petitioner responded.

Also read: Provision on Ombudsman’s Duties and Authorities Challenged

The Petitioner challenged Article 10 of the Ombudsman Law, which reads, “In executing its duties and jurisdiction, the Ombudsman shall not be arrested, detained, interrogated, prosecuted, or sued before the court.”

At the preliminary hearing on Tuesday, September 6, 2022, the Petitioner said his coalition had sent an administrative objection letter No. B/2424/HK.07.03/VII/2022 to the chairperson of the Ombudsman for the results of complaint of 3 maladministration acts in the appointment of regional heads. He had also sent a complaint on abuse of power to the Criminal Investigation Agency (Bareskrim), alleging that the Ombudsman had received and settled the complaint. He claimed to have potential loss as the Ombudsman had issued a letter to declare that it was processing all of those complaints.

“The Ombudsman should have rejected the complaint since the same complaint is being examined in the Jakarta state administrative court, so it might have violated Article 36 paragraph (1) letter b of the Ombudsman Law and Article 5 letter a of the Ombudsman Regulation No. 48 of 2020,” the Petitioner said.

He asserted that Article 10 of the Ombudsman Law was in violation of his rights granted by Article 27 paragraph (1) (“All citizens shall have equal status before the law and the government and hold without exemption the law and the government in esteem.”) and Article 28D paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution. He emphasized that all Indonesian citizens are equal before the law, thus no individual or institution should be immune from the law, or to avoid arrest, detention, interrogation, prosecution, or lawsuit even while performing their duty or authority.

In the petitum, he requested that the Court declare Article 10 of the Ombudsman Law unconstitutional and not legally binding if interpreted to mean “In executing its duties and jurisdiction, the Ombudsman shall not be arrested, detained, interrogated, prosecuted, or sued before the court despite having violated the law.”

Writer        : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Nur R.
PR            : Fitri Yuliana
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 9/22/2022 13:29 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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