MK Judge's Efforts to Explore Substantive Justice

Name: MK Judge's Efforts to Explore Substantive Justice
Uploaded: 2024-04-17T15:41:00Z
Duration: 20 min 32 s
Description: This is the first time the Constitutional Court has provided space for the parties to the presidential election dispute to submit their conclusions. For the sake of realizing justice.

This is the first time the Constitutional Court has provided space for the parties to the presidential election dispute to submit their conclusions. For the sake of realizing justice.

This article has been translated using AI. See Original .

NIKOLAUS HARBOWO

· 5 minutes read

The dispute over the 2024 Presidential Election is soon coming to an end. However, unlike the previous election dispute hearings, the constitutional judges have given the parties the opportunity to present their conclusions based on everything that happened during the trial. The weight of the conclusion is considered no more significant than the testimony of witnesses and evidence presented during the hearing. Nevertheless, through the submission of conclusions, the constitutional judges appear to be pursuing the creation of substantive justice.

At the end of the evidentiary hearing on the dispute over the results of the 2024 Presidential Election (Pilpres) before the eight constitutional judges entered the judge's deliberation meeting stage, Friday (5/4/2024), the Chairman of the Constitutional Court (MK) Suhartoyo announced the agreement of the constitutional judges regarding opening up space for the parties involved in the case to submit conclusions.

This is the first time such a decision has been made when the Constitutional Court handles disputes over presidential elections. The stage of presenting conclusions is usually only applied during the constitutional testing of laws. The new decision was made because according to Suhartoyo, there are many different dynamics in this year's presidential election compared to previous ones, so the Constitutional Court accommodates the presentation of crucial issues and the submission of documents that are still outstanding.

As an example, he mentioned relevant parties, namely the legal team of the Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka presidential and vice presidential candidate pair, who have not yet submitted witness and expert statements. In addition, all parties are also allowed to express their response to the testimony of four ministers from the Indonesian Maju Cabinet and to the Election Organizer's Honorary Council who were present in the hearing to be questioned.

Also read: Judges Deciding Election Disputes

The deadline for submitting the conclusions is on Tuesday (16/4/2024). Although the submission of conclusions is not required by the Constitutional Court, all parties are utilizing it by submitting their conclusions to the Court, both from the plaintiff of the presidential election lawsuit, the presidential and vice-presidential candidates Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar and Ganjar Pranowo-Mahfud MD; the respondent, namely the General Election Commission (KPU); as well as related parties, Prabowo-Gibran.

Professor of Law at Satya Wacana Christian University (UKSW), Salatiga, Umbu Rauta, believes that by considering Article 6 of the Constitutional Court Regulation No. 4 of 2023 concerning the Procedure for Handling Disputes over the Results of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections, as amended by PMK No. 4/2024, the stage of presenting conclusions is indeed not explicitly regulated.

However, the absence of the intended regulation is not immediately interpreted as not being allowed. According to him, the stages of presenting conclusions are allowed as long as they are agreed upon by the judge's plenary session in the judges' deliberation meeting (RPH) and do not interfere with the 14 working day deadline for completing the trial.

"Giving the opportunity to present conclusions actually provides an opportunity for the parties to convey and reaffirm their standing regarding disputes regarding the results of the 2024 presidential election," said Umbu Rauta.

Also read: Pursuing Dispute Decision on Presidential Election Results, MK Only Takes Two Days Off for Eid

The reaffirmation of those points should also take into account the facts presented in the trial during the evidence stage. Therefore, parties cannot submit new evidence.

Conclusion weight

Regarding the weight of the conclusions conveyed by the parties in the constitutional judge's decision later, according to Umbu, it highly depends on each judge's assessment, as well as its relevance to their legal opinion to become a material in the joint decision-making process with other judges. "Every judge has independence in composing legal opinions and is given the freedom to consider or not to consider based on its relevance level," said Umbu.

However, according to the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Brawijaya University in Malang, Aan Eko Widiarto, the weight of the conclusion is no more significant than the witnesses and evidence presented during the trial. This is because a conclusion is not considered evidence.

Regardless of that, he assessed that the existence of this conclusion delivery stage shows that the Constitutional Court judges want to provide justice space for the parties at the same time to show that the Court is not just a calculator court. This criticism is often addressed to the Constitutional Court because so far, it has only focused on adjudicating the results of vote counting. "The Constitutional Court seems to want to dig deeper into substantive justice," he said.

Also read: So that His Majesty remains in good condition while handling election disputes

Meanwhile, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Padjadjaran in Bandung, Susi Dwi Harijanti, believes that the delivery of this conclusion is part of procedural law. It should be noted that procedural law is the core of the law.

"Why are procedures important? Because procedures always speak about justice. Therefore, judges have the authority to always make changes or adaptations to procedural law. In other words, judges have the power, even if it is not regulated, to exercise discretion," he said.

Similar to Aan, he also sees the opening for all parties to convey their conclusions as the judge wants to provide an opportunity for all parties, especially the petitioner, to improve their applications based on the already passed stages. "It's possible that after all the evidence is presented, new things may arise that were not previously conveyed by the petitioner. Therefore, the petitioner is given the opportunity to complete it," he said.

Moreover, the judges see that the dispute over the results of this presidential election has a higher level of complexity compared to previous election disputes. In addition, there is a time limit of 14 days for the judges to resolve the case.

Also read: Children of Famous Advocates in Presidential Election Disputes, Not "Cans"

In other words, he sees judges as trying to bring about justice.

"The procedure is always related to justice. Therefore, when there are changes in procedural law, it must be evaluated that the change is to achieve better justice. Thus, the law is not simply interpreted as written law, but arises from ethical and moral practices," he said.

Editor:

ANTONIUS PONCO ANGGORO

MK Judge's Efforts to Explore Substantive Justice

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