Risky Kurniawan, the Petitioner’s counsel, withdrawing the material judicial petition of Law No. 13 of 2022 on Second Amendment to Law No. 12 of 2011 on Lawmaking virtually, Monday (5/29/2023). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held another judicial review hearing of Article 96 paragraph (6) of Law No. 13 of 2022 on the Second Amendment to Law No. 12 of 2011 on Lawmaking on Monday, May 29, 2023. The case No. 44/PUU-XXI/2023 was filed by two students of the International University of Bintan, Albert Ola Masan Setiawan Muda and Andrew Chua. The hearing was presided over by Constitutional Justices Enny Nurbaningsih (chair), Manahan M. P. Sitompul, and Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh.

The hearing had been scheduled to examine revisions to the petition, but the Court had received a letter from the Petitioners that request the withdrawal of the petition.

The justice panel then asked legal counsel Risky Kurniawan, who attended the hearing on site, to confirm the request. “The Petitioners should wait as this [request] will be reported to the justice deliberation meeting. so, today’s hearing is not to examine the revisions to the petition,” Justice Enny said.

Also read: Significance of Public Participation in Lawmaking

The Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of provisions on public consultation activities in Article 96 paragraph (6) of the Lawmaking Law, which reads, “To fulfill the rights as referred to in paragraph (1), the legislators may conduct public consultation activities through (a) public hearings; (b) work visits; (c) seminars, workshops, discussions; and/or (d) other public consultation activities.”

At the preliminary hearing on Thursday, May 11, 2023, legal counsel Risky Kurniawan asserted that the Petitioners feel their constitutional rights had been harmed by the enactment of the article. He said the word “may” did not make conducting public consultation activities mandatory, but merely optional. As such, the Petitioners argued that in order to mandate public participation, the word ‘may’ should be replaced by “shall.” In more concrete terms, they made an analogy with the Job Creation Law, which the Court declared conditionally unconstitutional due to formal flaw stemming from the lack of public participation.

“In conclusion, the [word] ‘shall’ is more effective for Article 96 paragraph (6) of the Lawmaking Law because public participation in lawmaking closely relates to the values of democracy. Therefore, public participation must be optimized as is referred to in Article 28C paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution,” said Risky.

Therefore, in the petitum, the Petitioners requested that the Court declare Article 96 paragraph (6) of Law No. 13 of 2022 conditionally constitutional, insofar as the word “may” be changed to “shall.”

Author       : Sri Pujianti
Editor        : Nur R.
PR            : Raisa Ayuditha
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.

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