CALS Becomes an Interested Party in the Judicial Review of the Law on Teachers and Lecturers at the Constitutional Court
The issue of lecturer welfare has resurfaced after a number of academics, grouped in the Constitutional and Administrative Law Society (CALS), officially registered as an interested party in the judicial review of the Law on Teachers and Lecturers at the Constitutional Court.
This submission is made to support the application for judicial review in Case Number 272/PUU-XXIII/2025. The applicant is reviewing Article 52, paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of the Law on Teachers and Lecturers, specifically regarding the regulation of “basic salary” for lecturers.
The legal figures who have registered as interested parties are Susi Dwi Harijanti, Denny Indrayana, Zainal Arifin Mochtar, Titi Anggraini, and Yance Arizona. All five are known as constitutional law academics who have been actively advocating for constitutional protection for the teaching profession.
In its official statement, CALS assessed that the provisions of Article 52 of the Law on Teachers and Lecturers do not establish a clear minimum standard regarding the amount of basic salary for lecturers. This condition is considered to create uncertainty and open up space for wide disparities in income between universities.
The applicants argue that this norm potentially conflicts with Article 27, paragraph (2), Article 28D, paragraphs (1), and (2) of the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees the right to work and a decent living, legal certainty, and the right to fair compensation and treatment in employment.
CALS member, Susi Dwi Harijanti, said that the issue of lecturer salaries is not just an administrative or technical budgeting issue, but a constitutional issue related to the state’s responsibility for higher education. “The absence of a minimum basic salary for lecturers is considered to open up space for wide disparities, trigger structural injustice, and potentially affect the quality of higher education nationally,” she said on Thursday, February 26, 2026.
CALS emphasizes that the state has a constitutional obligation to ensure a decent, measurable, and legally certain standard of income for lecturers. Without this guarantee, they believe it will be difficult to build a strong and dignified higher education system.
The submission as an interested party, according to them, is a form of academic and constitutional responsibility to oversee the direction of public policy. The hope is that the Constitutional Court’s decision will not only stop at normative interpretation, but will also be able to present substantive justice for lecturers as educators of the nation.