Nurlaila and Henny Aliah, the Petitioners’ legal counsels, at the ruling hearing of the material judicial review of the Judicial Law and the Supreme Court Law, Tuesday (2/28/2023). Photo by MKRI/Ifa.

Tuesday, February 28, 2023 | 19:43 WIB

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) dismissed the judicial review petition of Law No. 48 of 2009 on Judicial Power and Law No. 14 of 1985 in conjunction with Law No. 5 of 2004 in conjunction with Law No. 3 of 2009 on the Supreme Court relating to judicial review, filed by retired civil servant Ihda Misla.

The ruling hearing for Decision No. 3/PUU-XXI/2023 took place on Tuesday, January 28, 2023, presided over by Chief Justice Anwar Usman and the other eight constitutional justices. “[The Court] rejects the Petitioner’s provisional petition [and] declare the Petitioner’s petition inadmissible,” the chief justice declared.

Also read: Constitutionality of Judicial Review Questioned

In its legal considerations read out by Constitutional Justice M. Guntur Hamzah, the Court asserted that the Petitioner had elaborated many things, but the background of the petition was too short and did not show contradiction between the articles petitioned and the 1945 Constitution. The Petitioner only revealed that he had tried filing a judicial review petition and could not do so for the second time due to the Circular Letter of the Supreme Court (SEMA) No. 7 of 2014 on the Filing of a Judicial Review Petition in a Criminal Case. Such an explanation, the Court stressed, had in fact made the petition vague and made it seem like the Petitioner wished to challenge the SEMA. In addition, he had wished for a cumulative-alternative ruling with the phrase “and/or.” The Court also asserted that the subject up to the petitum of the petition made it seem like the Petitioner wished the Court to combine the two laws petitioned, thus showing ambiguity.

At the preliminary hearing on January 16, the Court had advised the Petitioner to amend the petitum following the standard format. However, until the petition revision hearing on January 30, the petitum had not been revised.

“Based on the aforementioned legal considerations, the Court is of the opinion that, since the petition’s subject matter and petitum were ambiguous, the petition became ambiguous,” Justice Guntur said.

Also read: Retired Civil Servant Revises Background of Petition on Constitutionality of Judicial Review

At the preliminary hearing, the Petitioner argued that Article 24 paragraph (2) of the Judicial Law and Article 66 paragraph (1) of the Supreme Court Law unconstitutional as they were not in line with the principle of the rule of law, which guarantees the citizens’ constitutional right to fight for justice and is contrary to responsive and progressive law. So, there should be no restrictions to seeking justice. Therefore, justice takes precedence over legal certainty, so a judicial review petition should be able to be filed more than once for seeking justice, even though legal certainty is ignored. On the other hand, judicial review clearly is irrelevant to legal certainty.

Author       : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Nur R.
PR            : Muhammad Halim
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 3/1/2023 09:18 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.