Constitutional Court limits election cases

Muninggar Sri Saraswati The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Candidates of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) are able to submit their cases to the Constitutional Court if they are not satisfied with the legislative election results.

This is stipulated in new guidelines on dispute resolution issued by the Constitutional Court early this week.

Apart from DPD candidates, the guidelines also makes it possible for presidential and vice presidential hopefuls as well as representatives of political parties to lodge their complaints.

Legislative candidates from political parties who run for either the House of Representatives (DPR) or the regional legislative council (DPRD) are not eligible to file an objection with the court.

The court will handle only those cases approved by the General Elections Commission (KPU). The KPU will approve cases if they "affect the winning of candidates of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), the ticket for pairs of presidential and vice presidential aspirants in the runoff as well as the seats for political parties in electoral districts."

The guidelines also stipulate that plaintiffs must register their cases within three days after the KPU announces the election results. The KPU is expected to announce the final election results on April 26.

"The court would deliver the decision within 30 days in cases involving the DPD and political parties objections and 14 days in complaints submitted by presidential candidates," the guidelines say.

Separately, the court's secretary-general Oka Mahendra said early this week that his office anticipated receiving a huge number of cases from around the country and was ready to hear election-linked disputes.

"DPD candidates may send their application by fax because they represent themselves," he said, citing the court's fax number (021) 3524261, 3863866, 3520705 or 3863864.

Oka also said that the court had set up a team to help nine judges in dealing with incoming cases. The team will assess possible problems that could create dispute, prepare data and provide information to help the judges, "because election disputes must be settled very quickly".

The team comprises several constitutional law experts, led by Satya Arinanto of the University of Indonesia in Jakarta and Riswandha Imawan of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.