Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat delivering his remarks at the opening of the International Short Course of the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts and Equivalent Institutions (AACC), Thursday (8/10/2023) in Jakarta. Photo by Humas MK.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — As a permanent secretariat of the Association of Asian Constitutional Courts and Equivalent Institutions (AACC), the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia (MKRI) is always committed to advancing the association on all counts, in terms of capacity building for the working level of the member states in addition to planning and coordination as well as implementation of activities for the justices. This statement was made by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat at the opening of the Sixth International Short Course of the AACC in Jakarta on Thursday, August 10, 2023.

Justice Arief believes in this modern era, the development of an institution or organization is highly contingent on both top-down and bottom-up collaboration. “As part of judicial institutions, we have the obligation to deliver decisions that can provide a sense of justice. And it must be noted that this obligation does not only rest on the shoulders of the justices, but also on yours as supporting staff members of the constitutional justices,” he said.

Building on that notion, since he was given trust as President of the AACC in 2015, one of the priority agendas have been to carry out programs to exchange experience as well as train staff members of the Constitutional Courts of the AACC members.

Technological Advances

He further explained that the Sixth AACC International Short Course, the MKRI decided on the theme “Democracy, Digital Transformation, and Judicial Independence.” “This theme was chosen with a particular purpose. We all understand that as a judicial institution and the guardian of democracy, the Constitutional Court is mandated to uphold the Constitution as the supreme law that manages the administration of the state based on the principles of democracy,” he emphasized.

He stressed that technological advances come with numerous challenges. They bring about opportunities and challenges that come with the high traffic of information. “Consequently, provocative information, hoaxes, and post-truth are commonplace. We understand the concept of Society 5.0 as an era where digital technology is an important part of life where humans is the main component. Similarly, law makes humans the key to legal mobilization. This means that the law does not function optimally without humans there to move the law. Therefore, I believe that technology is for humans; not the other way around,” he revealed.

Justice Arief also said that technology exists to develop, utilize, and use for the interest of mankind, without departing from the image of the Creator. He recounted his work visit to Dubai in 2022, where he had the opportunity to learn about how artificial intelligence has entered their justice system, including in the decisions.

He added that they were testing, in several financial cases, instead of using the judges’ wisdom to make decisions, to use algorithms designed in such a way to come to just decisions.

“This is a challenge for us all. As judicial institutions that review the nation’s norms and principles enshrined in the Constitution, it is important for us to prioritize vision, feelings, and intention as God’s creations equipped with perfect intelligence. Based on some of the things I said earlier, I believe that this short course will be very interesting for all participant to find out how technology can support humans in guarding democracy and realizing independent judiciary,” he explained.

Justice Arief also expressed hope that in the sharing session, participants will learn from one another and exchange ideas, so there would be new positive things to bring back to their respective countries.

Digital Transformation

In the first session of the AACC Short Course, Secretary-General Heru Setiawan delivered a presentation on “Digital Transformation in the Judicial Review Procedure at the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia.” He explained that since the beginning, the Constitutional Court has been determined to become a modern court by continuously implementing and developing innovations to optimize the utilization of information, communications, and technology (ICT).

“Undeniably, the use of ICT has become a main driving force for modern institutions such as the Constitutional Court, especially digital transformation in judicial review procedure,” he said.

He explained that the digital transformation in the Constitutional Court will produce legal documents out of legal analysis transformed by technology that to be able to process, store, and display legal principles in its decisions into a digital legal literacy that is integrated into a comprehensive legal literacy. To produce comprehensive legal literacy and to provide transparency on case handling, legal analysis must be carried out since case submission online or at the Court’s counter. Thus, at every stage of case handling and in hearings in the Court, legal documents will be produced and analyzed legally to produce legal literacy for the cases.

Heru asserted that digital transformation in judicial review procedure in the Constitutional Court is a necessity in strengthening support in the important phase in case handling, i.e. when the constitutional justices draft a decision after obtaining sufficient information through hearings that is open to the public. Digital transformation in the judicial review procedure in this phase is an important way of realizing-fully supported substantive in creating just and legally-certain decisions.

Meanwhile, state administration law professor I Gusti Ayu Ketut Rachmi Handayani said that e-Court and e-Government has allowed for the revitalization of the entire systems in the state and its relation to the duties of the state and the government in providing satisfactory services to the community through various efforts in order to produce faster, precise, humane, economic, non-discriminatory, and transparent services in accordance with general principles of good governance.

Next, law associate professor Edmon Makarim explained that the e-justice paradigm and e-Court transformation cannot be separated from the paradigm of electronic authenticity, not only the availability of data but also the cross-sectoral authenticity system.  He asserted that all communications and filings must be authenticity and be treated as state archives for evidentiary functions and legal learning in the future. The electronic case archive system must be supported by clear procedure and IT policies in the institution concerned.

He also said that the reliability of valid evidence must be assessed by the security system, which will technically determine the extent of its evidentiary power. The weight of proof is determined by the application of e-IDAS (e-identification and authentication system), so that as long as the validity of the IE/DE and the electronic system is secured or well-maintained, it automatically obtains strong and binding legal force.

He also emphasized the need for national law reform to consolidate policies on authenticity, especially for identity and public documents ahead of Law 2030. Technical and legal authenticity for electronic documents in Indonesia is regulated in Articles 5 and 6 of the EIT (Electronic Information and Transactions) Law and should be supported by electronic certification in accordance with the Government Regulation on the Implementation of Electronic Systems and Transactions (PP PSTE).

Author       : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
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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