Constitutional Justices Suhartoyo, Saldi Isra, and Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh at the judicial review of Law No. 22 of 2009 on the Road Traffic and Land Transportation, Monday (11/14/2022). Photo by MKRI/Panji.

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Monday, November 14, 2022 | 18:24 WIB

JAKARTA (MKRI)—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the petition revision hearing of the material judicial review of Law No. 22 of 2009 on the Road Traffic and Land Transportation (LLAJ) for case No. 98/PUU-XX/2022 on Monday, November 14, 2022 in the plenary courtroom.

Legal counsel Viktor Santoso Tandiasa said, “There were many significant changes that the Petitioner did [to the petition], for example, in the posita the Petitioner challenges Article 273 paragraph (1) and removed the phrase ‘immediately.’ We now focus on the interpretation of road organizer. The Petitioner did not change the touchstones, but [requested that the article be declared] conditionally constitutional,” he said.

The Petitioner also added data on accidents in January to May 2021 provided by the Directorate of Traffic Management for the Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Police, which shows a total loss of 1 billion rupiah from 40 accidents due to bad road condition. “Implicitly, the Government in casu the central government, the president, and/or relevant minister handling roads as well as the regional government in casu governor, regent, mayor can be positioned as road organizers. However, the general provisions do not provide a definition of road organizer explicitly,” he added.

Also read: Journalist Questions Role of State Administrators over Damaged Roads

Journalist Irfan Kamil argues that Article 273 paragraph (1) of the LLAJ Law and its elucidation were contrary to Article 1 paragraph (3) and Article 28D paragraph (1) of the 1945 Constitution. He argued that it could potentially lead to legal uncertainty in determining which state administrators are subject to criminal punishment in the event of a violation. As a journalist, he often drives a vehicle above the standard speed in order to be able to get news within the deadline. The many damaged roads could lead to accidents (including for the Petitioner).

The Petitioner alleged that the phrase in the norm does not provide legal certainty for investigators, especially in assessing the time used as a measure in reports on accidents, due to the damaged roads. If reports submitted to investigators cannot be processed, that the public cannot ask for accountability when they experience an accident due to damaged roads.

The Petitioner requested that the Court grant the entire petition and declare Article 273 paragraph (1) of the LLAJ Law along the phrase ‘who do not immediately and appropriately repair damaged roads’ conditionally unconstitutional and not legally binding if not interpreted “who have received a report on any damaged road and do not take action to repair the damaged road within 10 days.”

Writer        : Panji Erawan
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR            : Muhammad Halim
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 11/15/2022 10:46 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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