Court urged to scrap contentious articles
Court urged to scrap contentious articles
Muninggar Sri Saraswati
Jakarta
A legal observer has urged the Constitutional Court to order
state institutions to follow up its ruling annulling contentious
articles of law by scrapping regulations involving such articles.
"They should notify other institutions to follow up their
ruling. It would be a waste of time and energy if people must
file for judicial review with the court or the Supreme Court to
comply with the ruling," Benny K. Harman said after a discussion
here on Friday.
He was referring to the Court's ruling annulling an article of
Law No. 12/2003 on legislative election that bans former members
of the now-defunct Indonesia Communist Party (PKI) from joining
the election.
There are some 250 regulations, in the form of either laws,
presidential decrees, government decrees and others, that still
discriminate against former PKI members and their descendants.
"The court should take an active role, otherwise their rulings
will not be effective," Benny said.
Court chief Jimly Asshidiqie told The Jakarta Post that his
office has always notified other institutions about the rulings
of the Constitutional Court.
"The state gazette records our rulings and it is available to
the public. Other institutions use our rulings as a benchmark to
issue regulations," he said.
However, he said it was not possible for other institutions,
including the House of Representatives, to automatically annul
certain articles based on the court's ruling.
"It is on a case-by-case basis. An annulment of certain
articles in a law cannot be used to annul other laws and
regulations in general," he said.
Jimly referred to Germany, a state that bans former Nazis from
becoming ministers although they are allowed to enter the
parliament.
"There are different legal arguments for each law. To be a
legislator requires certain conditions that are different from
that of public officials," he said.
A number of plaintiffs are now waiting for the court's ruling
on their request to annul several articles of Law No. 23/2003 on
presidential election banning former members of the PKI to run
for public office.
In February, the court took a historic decision to annul an
article in Law No. 12/2003, paving the way for former PKI members
to become legislative candidates. The amendment to the law has
been seen as more progressive than Election Law No. 3/1999, which
only restored former PKI members' rights to vote.
Some parties have suggested that the government scrap all
discriminatory regulations against them after the issuance of the
law.
Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been
killed after the 1965 coup blamed on the communists. Millions of
suspected PKI members were sent to prison without trial.