M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – A petition presented by Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmakers to the House of Representatives calling for the curtailing of the Constitutional Court's powers received support Tuesday from legal experts and politicians.
National Law Commission chairman J.E. Sahetapy said that to prevent further confusion in the country's legal system, the House and the Government needed to immediately start altering the law on the Constitutional Court.
The first step toward amending the 2004 Constitutional Court Law could be drawing up new court procedures, he said. "Judges at the Constitutional Court can not be left to themselves to decide how a trial should proceed," Sahetapy told The Jakarta Post.
Sahetapy, a former member of the House special committee that deliberated the bill on the Constitutional Court, said the court's recent ruling on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR) Law proved it had gone beyond its legal authority.
"The human rights activists only asked that the court review three articles, but it ended up scrapping the whole law. This should not have happened as any court (only) has the right to make a decision on cases presented by a plaintiff," he said.
Last week the court annulled the 2004 law establishing the KKR, saying it was rife with inconsistencies. Eight of the nine judges were of the opinion that the articles in the law were "problematic" and did not encourage people to settle cases through the commission.
Sahetapy warned that the planned amendment would meet with resistance from the Constitutional Court. "The court is a new institution that wants to retain its place in the country's legal system, so its members will obviously block any attempt to curtail its authority," he said.
The PDI-P members who put up the petition said the court's authority should be limited to judicial review and it would not be allowed to annul contested laws or their articles but instead return them to the House for alteration in line with the Constitution. A number of political parties have supported the move.
House Speaker Agung Laksono said the House would hold a meeting with the Constitutional Court after it resumed session in early January.
Speaking separately, House legislation body deputy chairman Bomer Pasaribu said that work was in progress to draft a bill that would substantially reduce the powers of the Constitutional Court. "The court can't grow to become a superbody that stands above other state institutions," Bomer told the Post.
He said the House had been concerned by many of the rulings the court had produced in its two years of existence. "All the court's rulings give the impression that it has the authority to give orders to the House and the government to rewrite a law it deemed problematic, an authority that was once wielded by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR)," Bomer said.