Constitutional Court Rejects Roy Suryo's Challenge to Information and Electronic Transactions Law as Unclear

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s Constitutional Court (MK) has ruled that a constitutional review petition against the Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE) Law submitted by Roy Suryo, Doctor Tifa, and Rismon Hasiholan (Roy Suryo et al) lacks clarity.

In its legal reasoning, the Constitutional Court stated that the petitum (relief sought) submitted to the MK was not properly elaborated in the posita (statement of facts), particularly regarding the specific request for exemption of the law’s application to academics, researchers, or activists.

“Whereas other legal subjects falling within the scope of the aforementioned norms were not exempted or remained subject to the law’s application,” said Constitutional Court Chief Suhartoyo during the plenary hearing held at the Court’s hearing room in Jakarta on Monday, 16 March 2026.

The Court noted that this petitum appeared to represent a specific request serving only the interests of Roy Suryo et al.

“Furthermore, there is no argument regarding the constitutionality of the norms subject to review that explains why those norms are problematic only for academics, researchers, or activists,” Suhartoyo stated.

The Constitutional Court also found that petita 7 through 9, which requested that certain norms be joined with other norms using the term “juncto” and declared to contradict the 1945 Indonesian Constitution and lack binding legal force conditionally, constituted an unusual and incomprehensible petition.

“In this regard, do the petitioners intend to review both norms joined together? If that is what the petitioners wish, it should be formulated in separate petita, as with petita 2 through 6, which cite a single norm subject to review in each petitum,” Suhartoyo explained.

On this basis, the Constitutional Court declared: “There is no doubt for the Court to rule that the aforementioned petitions are unclear, vague, or obscure.”

The petition by Roy Suryo et al was consequently declared inadmissible.

The challenge filed by Roy Suryo et al constituted a constitutional review of provisions that made them suspects in a case concerning Joko Widodo’s academic credentials. The provisions challenged were Article 310 paragraph (1) of the Criminal Code, Article 311 paragraph (1) of the Criminal Code, Article 433 paragraph (1) of Law 1/2023, Article 434 paragraph (1) of the ITE Law, Article 27A of the ITE Law, Article 28 paragraph (2) of the ITE Law, Article 32 paragraphs (1) and (2) of the ITE Law, and Article 35 of the ITE Law.

The legal counsel for Roy Suryo et al, Refly Harun, stated that Roy Suryo et al were researchers investigating the academic credentials of Indonesia’s seventh President, Joko Widodo.