Roy Suryo and Tifa Plan Fresh Constitutional Challenge to IT Law Without Rismon
Jakarta — Roy Suryo and Tifauzia Tyassuma (known as doctor Tifa) plan to resubmit a constitutional challenge against the Information and Electronic Transaction Law (UU ITE) after the Constitutional Court found their initial petition unclear and inadmissible.
Their legal counsel, Refly Harun, stated that the new petition would be filed by Roy and Tifa alone, without third party Rismon Sianiar. He explained that the previous formation, which they called “RRT” (Roy, Rismon, Tifa), had been dissolved in favour of a new group called “Troya” (Tifa, Roy, Advocates), comprising just two principals.
Harun noted that the initial petition was rejected before reaching substantive examination by the court. He expressed optimism that the revised petition would proceed to full substantive review. A key change in their new petition is making the claims more general rather than targeting specific legal subjects.
“Although the original petition focused on three specific groups needing protection, if the Constitutional Court prefers a broader approach covering all groups, we will resubmit with that wider scope,” Harun said when met at the Constitutional Court in Jakarta on Monday (16 March 2026).
The Constitutional Court, in its earlier decision, noted that the petitioners’ requests (petitum) were not adequately explained in the legal grounds (posita). The court observed that the petition specifically sought exemptions from the law for academics, researchers and activists, whilst other legal subjects would remain subject to the provisions.
Court chairman Suhartoyo stated that the petitum appeared to represent a specific request serving only the interests of Roy Suryo and associates. The court also found petitums numbered seven through nine particularly problematic. These sections requested that certain legal norms be tested in combination with other norms using the term “juncto”, to be declared contrary to the 1945 Indonesian Constitution and lack binding legal force.
Suhartoyo characterised these requests as unusual and whose purpose could not be clearly understood. He questioned whether the petitioners intended to test both combined norms, noting that if so, they should have formulated separate petitums for each norm, similar to petitums two through six which stated a single norm for testing in each petition.
The court concluded that the formulation of petitums seven through nine created particular difficulty in understanding the petitioners’ true intent, resulting in their determination that the petitions were “unclear, vague, or obscure” (obscuur). The petition was subsequently ruled inadmissible.