The constitutional justices entering the courtroom for the judicial review hearing of Law No. 13 of 2022 on Lawmaking to hear the House and the president, Monday (10/10/2022). Photo by MKRI/Ilham W. M.
Monday, October 10, 2022 | 16:23 WIB
JAKARTA (MKRI)—The Constitutional Court (MK) held another formal judicial review hearing of Law No. 13 of 2022 on the Second Amendment to Law No. 12 of 2011 on Lawmaking (P3 Law) on Monday, September 19, 2022. The hearing for case No. 82/PUU-XX/2022 had been set to hear the Government, represented by an expert staff for Regulation, Law Enforcement, and Economic Resilience of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Elen Setiadi.
Before Chief Justice Anwar Usman and the other eight constitutional justices, Setiadi stated that the Lawmaking Law was formed in order to meet legal needs in society, including through the omnibus method. Overall, the improvement in the Lawmaking Law included adding the omnibus method, adding lawmaking stages to correct technical errors after the House’s and the president’s joint approval in a plenary meeting and before ratification and promulgation, improving meaningful community involvement and participation, as well as perfecting lawmaking techniques.
“The bill on the second amendment to Law No. 12 of 2011 on Lawmaking is not included in the List of Open Cumulative Bills, but in the Prolegnas Priority List of Bills for 2022,” she explained.
Function of Political Parties
Furthermore, Setiadi explained the Petitioners’ argument that the Government had practiced ‘the co-optation of the ruling party in the parliament,’ ‘the violation of the law and Constitution,’ and ‘undermined judicial independence,’ thus indicating what Scheppele said to be autocratic legalism. The Government believed the Petitioners had mistakenly assumed that the co-optation had taken place due to an oversized coalition, because there were factions rejected the second amendment to the Lawmaking Law. This, she added, cannot be justified because it is based on Article 11 paragraph (1) letter c in conjunction with Article 12 letter e of Law No. 2 of 2008 as amended by Law No. 2 of 2011 on Political Parties.
In essence, every political party has a fundamental function to collect and channel the people’s political aspirations in formulating and determining state policies. In addition, they are also entitled to form factions in the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), the House of Representatives (DPR), and the Provincial and Regency/City Regional Legislative Council (DPRD) in accordance with the laws and regulations. As such, political parties represent the people’s aspirations that are guaranteed in the Political Party Law, which commands respect because they are a collective embodiment of the struggle for the people’s rights as per Article 28C paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution.
“Therefore, the decision-making in the work meetings between the nine factions with the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs; the Minister of Law and Human Rights; and the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs at the first-level decision making forum on the bill on the second amendment to Law No. 12 of 2011 should be understood as the implementation of the freedom of political parties in fighting for the people’s aspirations. Therefore, this does not necessarily mean that co-optation has occurred due to the lack of factions that rejected the bill on the second amendment to Law No. 12 of 2011,” Setiadi explained.
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The petition No. 82/PUU-XX/2022 was filed by five Petitioners: lecturers Islamil Hasani and Laurensius Arliman, university student Bayu Satria Utomo, the Congress of Indonesian Unions Alliance (KASBI), and the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI).
At the preliminary hearing on Monday, September 5, 2022, the Petitioners asserted that the second amendment to the Lawmaking Law had not met the requirements for an open cumulative bill since it was not the follow-up on the Constitutional Court Decision No. 91/PUU-XVIII/2020, which did not assert that the Lawmaking Law was unconstitutional. The Government and the House of Representatives (DPR) should have amended the problematic Job Creation Law, especially Article 64 paragraph (1) letter b, Article 72 paragraph (1) letter a, Article 73 paragraph (1), and Article 96 paragraph (3).
The Petitioners also argued that the discussion of the Lawmaking Law had disregarded the public and was hasty. Flow of information relating to the Law only occurred one-way from lawmakers to the public through news articles, pamphlets, posters, and other simple means of communication. There was no room for feedback from the public, thus the public did not have any power to negotiate.
The Petitioners believed that the Lawmaking Law was the House’s initiative at the House plenary meeting on February 8, 2022 and was ratified on May 24, 2022. The discussion only took place from April 7 to May 24, 2022. The Petitioners also asserted that the Law had violated lawmaking principles, as it disregarded clarity of purpose, institutional value, implementation value, usability and effectiveness, clarity of formulation, and transparency.
Writer : Sri Pujianti
Editor : Nur R.
PR : Andhini S. F.
Translator : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 10/17/2022 20:57 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.
Monday, October 10, 2022 | 16:23 WIB 298