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epresentatives of the government and the House of Representatives told a court hearing on Tuesday that the new legislative election law did not sideline women and was devised to empower them politically.

They were responding to women activists'€™ claims that the law was discriminatory against women for not strictly requiring political parties to ensure that at least 30 percent of their executives are females.

The activists, calling themselves the Women Coalition, are requesting that the Constitutional Court amend the law, arguing that the 2012 Legislative Election Law is against their constitutional rights.

They challenged Article 8 Paragraph 2 (e), Article 55, the explanation of Article 56 Paragraph 2 and Article 215 (b) on women'€™s participation in legislative elections, saying that the clauses did not provide legal certainty and did not side with women as they were not binding. They further argued the articles were open to various interpretations.

Home Ministry spokesman Reydonnyzar Moenek, who represented the government, stopped short of saying whether the 30 percent quota was binding or not but made clear that it was a '€œpolitical decision'€ that should be supported. '€œThe 30 percent quota stipulated in the law is a political decision. Therefore we all should support it,'€ he said, adding that it would guarantee women'€™s participation in the election.

Lawmaker Martin Hutabarat, who represented the House, dismissed plaintiffs arguments. He told the hearing that the law would not impede women who wanted to enter the race. He disagreed with the petitioners, who had argued that the word '€œor'€ in the Article 56 Paragraph 2 was discriminative as it would not allow two women to sit on a sequence.

According to Martin, the article '€” which stipulates having at least one female candidate for every three candidates '€” gave more opportunity for women in politics as it did not fix a 3:1 ratio. '€œThe phrase '€˜at least'€™ means there can be more than one female candidate for every three candidates,'€ he said.

Article 56 Paragraph (2) says that political parties should have at least one female candidate for every three candidates. The article'€™s explanation says that for every three candidates, the female candidate can be placed in the first, second or third position.

The Constitutional Court adjourned the hearing.

Although the General Elections Commission (KPU) has ruled that parties not meeting the 30'€“percent quota for female candidates would be disqualified from districts where they failed to meet the requisite number, the coalition insisted that the passage in the 2012 Election Law requiring political parties to better represent women was not binding.

Former head of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) Erna Ratnaningsih, who represented the plaintiffs, said after the hearing that such non-binding provisions would only close women'€™s access to politics.

According to the UNDP'€™s 2013 Human Development Report titled '€œThe Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World'€, Indonesia even lags behind Laos and Vietnam in terms of women'€™s presence in lawmaking bodies.

The UN report also said that Indonesia had the worst record '€” with 106th rank on the 2012 Gender Inequality Index '€” in Southeast Asia. Indonesia lags behind its ASEAN peers such as Singapore (13th rank), Malaysia (42), Vietnam (48), Philippines (77), Myanmar (80), Cambodia (96) and Laos (100).

Based on the World Bank 2011 data, women constitute 50.14 percent of Indonesia'€™s total population of 244 million people, but they occupy only 18.2 seats in the House of Representatives, much below the ideal quota of 30 percent set by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

The 2012 Election Law has drawn criticism from the Islam-based United Development Party (PPP), saying that such a women'€™s quota was '€œirrational'€ as it was not easy to find women candidates.