The Court delivering verdict for case No. 115-01-17-32/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 at a ruling hearing for the 2024 legislative election results dispute of North Maluku Province, Tuesday (5/21/2024) in the plenary courtroom. Photo by MKRI/Bayu.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) delivered a ruling for the 2024 DPRD (Regional Legislative Council) election results dispute for case No. 115-01-17-32/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. The case was filed by PPP (United Development Party) for the electoral district of Sula 3. The Court decided that the petition was inadmissible because PPP did not clearly describe the dispute.

“[The Court] adjudicated, relating to the petition’s subject matter: to rule that the Petitioner’s petition is inadmissible,” said Chief Justice Suhartoyo in the preliminary courtroom on Tuesday, May 21, 2024.

Delivering the Court’s opinion, Constitutional Justice Ridwan Mansyur explained that the Petitioner’s posita did not have a clear and adequate explanation about the election dispute in electoral district Sula Island 3. However, in the petitums, especially number 4 and number 6, the Petitioner requested the Court to determine the fourth seat of Sula Island 3. In this case, the posita and petitums were inconsistent.

The Court examined the formulation of the petitums, where petitums 2.2 and 3.2 mentioned Sula Islands 4 (written as Sula Islands IV), but petitums 4 and 6 mentioned Sula Islands 3. Therefore, according to the Court, the posita and petitums were inconsistent. In this case, the Petitioner did not describe the loci or electoral districts it questioned.

At the preliminary hearing on April 30, the panel of justices confirmed that the Petitioner could not do renvoi to the petition as it had been allowed to revise the petition. Revisions can only be filed once based on Article 16 paragraph (1) and Article 17 of the Constitutional Court Regulation No. 2 of 2023.

These legal facts further added to the Court’s conviction that there had indeed been an error in the petition. Thus, the Respondent’s and Related Parties’ exceptions regarding the Petitioner’s petition being unclear or vague were well-founded according to law.

The Petitioner’s argument about 5,400 of its votes for the DPR election in North Maluku (relating to the 4 percent parliamentary threshold) being transferred to Garuda (Indonesian Guard of Change Party) due to a calculation error by the Respondent. Garuda’s 194 votes were increased to 5,594. The Petitioner said Garuda’s original votes of 13,795 were reduced to 8,395.

For this reason, according to the Court, the Petitioner had not described how and where from its votes were transferred to Garuda. In its petition, the Petitioner only mentioned a transfer of 5,400 votes due to counting errors by the Respondent. However, it did not explain whether the error had occurred at the polling station, or during recapitulation in the subdistrict, regency, or at a higher level, so the Court did not find a clear description of the “counting error by the Respondent.”

“Based on these legal facts, [the Petitioner’s petition] does not align with the provisions of procedural law as stipulated in Article 75 of the Constitutional Court Law and Article 11 paragraph (2) letter b of Constitutional Court Regulation No. 2 of 2023, which require the Petitioner to clearly describe the error in the vote count results determined by the Respondent. Thus, the Petitioner’s a quo argument was unclear or vague,” Justice Ridwan said.

In this case, Constitutional Justice Arsul Sani used his right to abstain in deciding this case. Although present in the court, he did not participate in delivering any legal opinion in deciding this case nor in conducting an in-depth study.

Also read:

PPP Aims for Fourth Seat in Sula Islands Regency Council

KPU Denies Allegations of PPP Votes Being Transferred to the Garuda Party in Sula Islands

Author              : Mimi Kartika
Editor                : Nur R.
Translator         : M. Ariva Aswin Bahar/Yuniar W.

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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