Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra after reading out the Court’s legal considerations at the ruling hearing of the judicial review of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Tuesday (2/28/2023). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 | 20:52 WIB

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) rejected the material judicial review petition of Article 169 letter n and Article 227 letter i of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections relating to presidential threshold. The petition No. 4/PUU-XXI/2023 was filed by Herifuddin Daulay, a contract teacher. The ruling hearing took place on Tuesday, January 28, 2023 in the plenary courtroom. “[The Court] rejects the Petitioner’s petition in its entirety,” said Chief Justice Anwar Usman reading out the verdict alongside the other eight constitutional justices.

Reading out the Court’s legal considerations, Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra asserted that the petition was not much different from that in Decision No. 117/PUU-XX/2022 and the Court did not have enough legal reason to change its stance.

“So, the legal considerations in Decision No. 117/PUU-XX/2022, mutatis mutandis, serves as the legal considerations in the a quo decision. It means that Article 169 letter n and Article 227 letter l of Law No. 7 of 2017 are constitutional,” Justice Saldi said.

Also read: Petitioner Says Limit of Two Terms for President Counterintuitive

However, Justice Saldi added, it was important that the Court declare that in similar decisions on Article 222 of the Election Law relating to presidential threshold, especially since the Law was enacted, Justice Suhartoyo and Justice Saldi had a dissenting opinion and kept to the stance that the presidential threshold was unconstitutional. “This means that, aside from that dissenting opinion, Article 227 of Law No. 7 of 2017 is constitutional,” he said.

Based on the legal considerations, the Petitioner’s arguments that Article 169 letter n, Article 227 letter I, and Article 222 of Law No. 7 of 2017 were unconstitutional were legally groundless. The Petitioner also conveyed other arguments. Since those arguments were vague and not relevant to the petitum, the Court deemed them irrelevant and did not consider them further. The Court also viewed the provisional petition, in which the Petitioner requested that the Court declare legal principles follow the convention of the Indonesian language, obscure, thus must be disregarded.

Also read: Petitioner of Provision on Presidential Ticket Requirements Revises Petition

The Petitioner had previously asserted that his constitutional rights had been violated by the enactment of Article 7 of the 1945 Constitution on restriction to two terms of office for the president. He argued that very few people had the competency for the position of a president, so the restriction would lead to a president-elect who does not have competency.

He also argued that the article was ambiguous and an additional provision was needed to affirm the norm, so that it would read “re-elected for two terms if necessary, either without any specific measure or through the Constitutional Court’s decision.”

The Petitioner also asserted that the additional norms, Article 169 letter n and Article 227 letter i of the Election Law, which served as the basis for the restriction on the reelection of the president, were counterintuitive and, thus, must be annulled. In the petitum, he requested that the Court declare Article 169 letter n and Article 227 letter i of the Election Law unconstitutional and not legally binding.

Author       : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari
PR            : Fitri Yuliana
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 3/1/2023 11:14 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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