'DPR commits constitution contempt'

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Experts accused legislators and the government on Monday of contempt of the Constitution for intentionally delaying the debate on the constitutional court bill, and threatening a delay in the establishment of the court until August.

"This is how our politicians try to deceive the people, who are not aware of the political importance of this institution," Denny Indrayana, a law lecturer at Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Although such contempt of the Constitution carried no legal consequences for the politicians, it nevertheless showed their lack of ethics, he said.

"If they insist on endorsing the bill this month, they will produce a very poor law indeed," he added.

The House of Representatives has agreed to convene an extraordinary plenary meeting on July 31 to endorse the bill.

Under the amended 1945 Constitution, a constitutional court must be established by August 17, 2003.

But the House only began the deliberation of the bill on July 4.

The constitutional court will have a number of arduous tasks, including recommending the impeachment of the president, reviewing laws that are repugnant to the constitution, suspending political parties, and settling disputes over election results.

Denny said that there were many flaws in the constitutional court bill, including the stipulation that only the ombudsman commission had the power to carry out an initial review of a law's constitutionality before submitting it to the constitutional court for a ruling, and that the constitutionality of a law had to be challenged in the court within a period of 90 days after endorsement.

"The bill should allow other groups to see whether a law is constitutional or otherwise, and leave open the possible review of old laws that are against our Constitution. Without this, the functions of the Constitutional Court will be unnecessarily restrictive," Denny said.

Meanwhile, Hadar Nafis Gumay of the Center for Electoral Reform (Cetro) said that the constitutional court bill as it now stood would also render the court ineffective in settling electoral disputes.

"The bill states that the court will have the authority to resolve disputes over national election results. But the disputes usually occur at the local level. Thus, it would be better if this article were changed," he said.

An article allowing political parties and regional representative candidates to file lawsuits over election results with the constitutional court should also be revised, he said.

"People should also be facilitated in going to court over unfair election results as they are not only the voters, but also want to see transparent polls," Hadar said.

Bivitri Susanti, executive director of the Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies (PSHK), agreed that politicians had intentionally delayed the deliberation of the constitutional court bill.

Denny said that if the constitutional court failed to be established next month, it should be created by the end of this year to ensure that next year's election process would be overseen by an impartial referee.

Meanwhile, the minister of justice requested the People's Consultative Assembly to prepare for a possible delay in the establishment of the constitutional court.

"The bill from the House is far from perfect, and is very complicated with 355 issues to be discussed," Minister for Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra said on Monday, after meeting the President.

He said it would be impossible for the House to meet the deadline, and the Assembly would have to be ready to accept a possible violation of the Constitution.

The Assembly is slated to start its annual session on Aug. 1.