Two Petitioners of the Law on Social Worker and Law on the Handling of the Poor and Needy delivering their petition, Wednesday (11/19/2025). Photo by MKRI/Ilham W.M.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — Alif Rahman and Usyman Affan have filed a material review petition of Articles 2 and 7 of Law No. 14 of 2019 on Social Workers; as well as Article 2, Article 5, Article 12 paragraph (1), Article 13, Article 14, Article 15 paragraph (1), Article 16, Article 17, and Article 18 paragraph (1) of Law No. 13 of 2011 on the Handling of the Poor and Needy with the Constitutional Court. According to them, these articles conflict with Article 1 paragraph (2), Article 1 paragraph (3), Article 22E paragraph (1), Article 23 paragraph (1), and Article 28D paragraph (1) of the Constitution.

“Because they fail to accommodate legal certainty and may create opportunities for exploitation of social protection activities of social workers by policymakers, such as using social workers to carry out social protection for campaigning,” said Alif alongside Usyman at the preliminary hearing for Case No. 218/PUU-XXIII/2025 on Wednesday, November 19, 2025.

Meanwhile, they added, as there is no regulation on the principles of neutrality and independence, nor strong written provisions on activities that prevent non-neutral social protection, this may also undermine democracy. If neutrality and independence were explicitly written in the articles under review, they asserted, it could minimize and prevent suspicious interpretations arising from the provision of social policies at inappropriate times.

In addition, the implementation of social work by social workers and the handling of the poor is funded by the state budget (APBN). However, when the implementation of social protection is used as a campaign tool, the state budget is misused to operate social policies for political interests, which certainly harms the State and citizens who have the constitutional right to enjoy honest and fair elections.

“Therefore, neutrality, independence, and their realization is crucial to be explicitly regulated in order to guarantee the constitutional rights of Indonesian citizens to enjoy legal certainty, honest and fair democracy, and the greatest possible prosperity,” said Alif.

In their petition, the Petitioners ask the Court to declare that Article 2 and Article 7 of the Social Workers Law, as well as Article 2, Article 5, Article 12 paragraph (1), Article 13, Article 14, Article 15 paragraph (1), Article 16, Article 17, and Article 18 paragraph (1) of the Law on the Handling of the Poor and Needy unconstitutional and not legally binding insofar as they are not interpreted in accordance with the interpretation requested in the petition. For example, that Article 2 of the Social Workers Law be interpreted to read: “Social Workers shall carry out Social Work Practices based on the principles of: a) non-discrimination; b) solidarity; c) justice; d) professionalism; e) usefulness; f) integration; g) partnership; h) accessibility; i) accountability; j) neutrality; and k) independence.”

The case was heard by Constitutional Justices Arief Hidayat (panel chair), Enny Nurbaningsih, and Arsul Sani. In his advice, Justice Arsul stated that the Petitioners should study all the articles contained in the Social Workers Law and the Law on the Handling of the Poor and Needy to obtain a comprehensive picture of the norms under review in relation to their petition.

“In Article 46, social workers shall form a social worker organization that is independent, autonomous, and has legal status, and one of its tasks is to draft a code of ethics for social workers. It may be that the issues of neutrality and independence are addressed there,” he said.

At the end of the hearing, the panel of justices announced that the Petitioners would have 14 days to revise the petition, which must be submitted no later than Tuesday, December 2, 2025 to the Registrar’s Office.

Author         : Mimi Kartika
Editor          : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR               : Andhini S. F.
Translators   : 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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