The judicial review hearing of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections, Tuesday (3/21/2023). Photo by MKRI/Panji.

---

Tuesday, March 21, 2023 | 16:27 WIB

JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held another judicial review hearing of Article 10 paragraph (9) of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections (Election Law) on Tuesday, March 21, 2023 in the plenary courtroom. The petition No. 120/PUU-XX/2022 was filed by entrepreneur Dedi Subroto, advocate Bahrain, and the Center for Strategic and Indonesian Public Policy/CSIPP (Petitioners I-III).

The fifth hearing was supposed to present two experts and one witness for the Petitioners, but the experts’ statements had only been submitted to the Court the previous day.

“The Petitioners present two experts and one witness based on the Registrar’s Office’s information. However, the written statements and CVs were only submitted yesterday, so the requirement was not met. Therefore, their statements would be heard on the next hearing on Monday, April 10, 2023 at 10:00 WIB,” said Chief Justice Anwar Usman alongside Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra and the other seven constitutional justices.

Also read:

Petitioners Request Tenures of KPUD Members Be Extended Until After Election

Petitioners Revise Petition on Tenures of KPUD Members

Hasyim Asy’ari: Selection of KPU Members Does Not Hinder Elections

Extension of KPU’s Tenure Potentially Unconstitutional

The Petitioners question the shortening of the tenure of provincial and regency/city KPU members in relation to the 2024 Simultaneous Elections. They believe this violates the principle of legality, since those members were inaugurated for a five-year term.

The selection for those members, which overlaps with the election process, potentially disrupts the election process and lead to higher election costs since the state must compensate the dismissed members while still paying for the salaries of current members.

“Based on the KPU RI, the tenures of provincial KPU members in 2023-2024 are different. This variation will lead to many selection batches and selection schedules, thus disturbing the stages of the 2024 Simultaneous Elections. For a good election system, the recruitment of members of the provincial and regency/city KPU should be conducted simultaneously outside of the election stages or pre-election. Therefore, there needs to be a transition period that extends the tenures of the KPU members that expire in 2023 and 2024 until the end of the simultaneous elections in 2024,” legal counsel Ikhwan Fahrojih explained at the preliminary hearing on Monday, December 19, 2022.

In the petitum, the Petitioners requested that the Court declare Article 10 paragraph (9) of Election Law unconstitutional and not legally binding if interpreted as “The members of Provincial and Regency/City KPU whose tenures end in 2023 and 2024 shall have their tenures extended until after the simultaneous elections of 2024.”  

Author       : Sri Pujianti
Editor        : Nur R.
PR            : Muhammad Halim
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

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.

---