MPR, don't waste time

As a graduate of the constitutional law department, School of Law, University of Indonesia, Depok, Jakarta, I am surprised to find that there are so many draft decrees which the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Working Committee will discuss (Kompas Sept. 2, 1998).

In this reform era, I believe we must return to the 1945 Constitution. According to the constitution, the MPR is authorized only to stipulate the broad lines of the State Policy Giudelines (GBHN) and the constitution (article 3), elect the president and the vice president (article 6, paragraph 2), and to amend the constitution (article 37). Therefore, it is clear that the authority of the MPR is very limited.

True to its nature, a constitution restricts things when it is accepted. The MPR does not have the authority to regulate matters not clearly defined in the constitution. Therefore, it is not authorized to issue decrees which seek to regulate things such as the procedure for the election of the president and the vice president, the working procedure in the relationship between the state's highest institutions and between the state's high institutions, the organization of a general election and so forth, including the MPR regulations of conduct.

The MPR is the holder of sovereignty. So when it convenes, it will stipulate its own working procedure pursuant to article 2 paragraph 3 of the 1945 Constitution, which stipulates that an MPR decree must be taken by a vote of majority. Therefore, all MPR decrees which contain regulations must, by law, be canceled or must, from the very beginning, be considered as nonexistent. The power to regulate further stipulations laid down in the constitution must be granted by the law (General Elucidation of point IV of the 1945 Constitution).

The MPR is also not authorized to confer titles and medals of merit because it is firmly stipulated in article 15 of the constitution that "the President confers titles, medals of merit and other tokens of honor". So, the conferment of the title Father of Development on Soeharto, Indonesia's second president, by the MPR is not valid because the MPR is not authorized to do so. In the same way, it is not in place to make a proposal for the conferment of Reform Heroes through an MPR decree because the authority to do so rests with the president.

As for the investigation into the assets of former president Soeharto, this will be the job of law-enforcement apparatuses. The Habibie administration must take the initiative and have enough guts to examine the assets of former president Soeharto.

The items in the agenda of the extraordinary session of the MPR are, therefore, confined to only the stipulation of the broad lines of the GBHN and the constitution, the election of the president and the vice president and the amendment to the constitution. The MPR should not waste time and money on things beyond its authority. It must be seen to that the MPR does not exceed its own authority because once it deviates from the constitution, it will be impossible for us to expect that state institutions of a level below the MPR will implement the constitution.

PAUSTINUS SIBURIAN

Jakarta