The Petitioners presenting the arguments of their petition in the judicial review of Law No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection, Tuesday (5/12/2026), in the Constitutional Court’s panel courtroom. MKRI/Panji.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) on Tuesday, May 12, 2026 held another hearing for the material judicial review of Article 9 paragraph (1) of Law No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection (Consumer Protection Law). The agenda of the hearing was to examine the revisions to Petition No. 141/PUU-XXIV/2026, filed by seven university students.

The Petitioners, through their legal counsel Bernita Matondang, explained that they had made several revisions to their petition. Matondang said the revisions included changing the object of the petition, which had previously challenged the phrase “as if,” to the phrase “offering, promoting, and advertising.”

In the section on the Petitioners’ constitutional impairment, they argued that the provision does not yet cover forms of digital commerce. “The phrase ‘offering, promoting, and advertising’ was designed only to cover conventional forms of commercial communication, such as print advertising, television and radio broadcasts, and direct offers. Meanwhile, the development of electronic commerce has given rise to various new forms of digital promotion, such as interface displays, UI/UX disruptions, digital delivery information systems, automatic cost calculation, representations of digital security systems, and algorithm-based product visualizations, which are not explicitly listed in the a quo norm,” Matondang said.

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Seven Law Students Challenge Consumer Protection Law over Misleading Digital Advertising

For context, seven law students filed a petition for the material judicial review of the Consumer Protection Law against the 1945 Constitution at the Constitutional Court (MK). They are Sarah Rahayu, Nurhaliza Zahra, Livia Maulina, Primo Putra Ramadhan, Zalva Viola Munir, Amelia Harditya, and Muhamad Nabil Gunawan. The Petitioners challenge the phrase “offering, promoting, and advertising” in Article 9 paragraph (1) of the Consumer Protection Law.

Article 9 paragraph (1) of the Consumer Protection Law reads in full, “Business actors are prohibited from offering, promoting, or advertising any goods and/or services falsely and/or as if:”

At the preliminary hearing to examine Petition No. 141/PUU-XXIV/2026, held at the Court on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, Zalva Viola Munir said the challenged norm created legal uncertainty because it did not expressly provide clear, measurable, and objective parameters for promotions, resulting in consumers not receiving accurate information about products in digital transactions.

Another Petitioner, Nurhaliza Zahra, said that in today’s modern commerce, business actors exploit legal loopholes to create misleading perceptions by providing information that appears true but is misleading in substance. “As a result, the function of the a quo norm has shifted from a consumer protection instrument into a tool of legitimization,” Zahra said.

Author: Ilham Wiryadi Muhammad
Editor: N. Rosi
PR: Adriana

Translator: Siti Rosmalina Nurhayati

Explore the case: Petition No. 141/PUU-XXIV/2026

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 prevails.

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