Court welcomes electoral dispute cases

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta

The Constitutional Court announced on Tuesday its readiness to hear challenges to the results of the legislative election filed by political parties and Regional Representatives candidates on Wednesday.

"By the time the KPU announces the final results, we will have opened the registration of electoral dispute cases," Constitutional Court President Jimly Asshidiqie told a press conference.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) is expected to announce the results of the manual count, the only method recognized by the law, at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

The complaints registration process, according to the Constitutional Court Law, should take place three days at the latest after the KPU announces the election results.

Jimly, therefore, urged the central boards of the 24 political parties that contested the April 5 election to prepare documents and witnesses before filing their complaints with the court.

"Please be ready and make the necessary preparations for the technical procedures required when filing a complaint against the KPU. Don't talk solely about coalitions," he said, referring to the ongoing moves by a number of political parties to forge coalitions for the presidential election in July.

The court has twice invited all the political parties to meetings to brief them about the procedures for challenging the election results, but most of them failed to send representatives.

The court has also sent out guidelines to the parties telling them how they should go about filing complaints.

Despite these efforts, as of Tuesday morning the court had received over 100 complaints from regional branches of political parties across the country. They said they had filed the complaints as they did not know what the procedures were.

According to the Constitutional Court Law, the court only has jurisdiction to hear electoral complaints filed by the central boards of political parties.

"We will reject a case if the petitioner fails to satisfy the administrative requirements. If that happens, it will be their fault," Jimly asserted.

The court has divided its judges up into several teams to enable it to register all complaints over a period of 24 hours.

The court's decisions are final and binding.

Should the Constitutional Court rules in against a political party in an electoral dispute case, then its seat in the House of Representatives will be handed over to another party.

In the past electoral disputes were left unsettled.

The new arrangements follow last year's establishment of the Constitutional Court, which is given the jurisdiction to, among other things, conduct judicial reviews of the constitutionality of laws, hear electoral disputes and rule on House motions impeaching the president.