Chief Justice Anwar Usman opening the judicial review hearing of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Wednesday (9/28/2022). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | 12:58 WIB
JAKARTA (MKRI)—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the third hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law) on Wednesday, September 28, 2022. 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). The Court was supposed to hear the testimony of the House of Representatives (House), the president, and the KPU (General Elections Commission).
Chief Justice Anwar Usman, who chaired the session, said that the Registrar’s Office reported that the House and the president’s counsel had sent a letter to request a delay of the hearing. He informed that the KPU as a Relevant Party can also give their testimony at the next hearing.
“Therefore, the session is delayed until Thursday, October 13, 2022 at 11:00 WIB to hear the House, the president, and the KPU,” he said alongside the other eight constitutional justices in the plenary courtroom.
Also read:
Perludem Questions Provision on Electoral Districts of New Autonomous Regions in Election Law
Perludem Explains Their Legal Standing in Case Against 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 10/13/2022 14:01 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.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | 12:58 WIB 254