T

he House of Representatives (DPR) and the government defended the new voting mechanism for selecting House speaker during a hearing at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday in the judicial review case initiated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

The PDI-P, which won the most number of seats in the April legislative election, is currently challenging the mechanism established by the just-passed Legislative Institution Law (MD3) that strips the majority party in the House of the right to appoint the speaker, making it the result of a House election.

The PDI-P has demanded that the court scrap this provision, along with six others that establish similar voting mechanisms for deputy speakers, leaders of the House'€™s 11 commissions, as well as other House bodies.

Aziz Syamsuddin, a Golkar Party lawyer, which is one of the parties in the PDI-P'€™s rival coalition, told the bench that the checks-and-balance system was jeopardized if House leadership was automatically given to the legislative election winner.

'€œA democratic selection mechanism of House speakers should reflect the will of the public and not only the interests of party,'€ Aziz, in his capacity as a lawyer representing the House, told the panel of justices during the hearing on Tuesday.

'€œThe new provision also still grants the petitioner the opportunity to become House speaker,'€ he added.

Aziz added that the mechanism to select House leadership should be an open procedure, but exclusive to the House. He cited examples of similar practices at other government institutions, including the Supreme Court, the Judicial Commission and the Constitutional Court itself.

Azis also argued that the PDI-P had no legal standing because the House had given the party members the opportunity to express their views during the law'€™s deliberation.

'€œThe House applied no discrimination during the deliberation of the law,'€ Aziz said. '€œSo, it is, in fact, improper to question such a mechanism after the law is enacted.'€

Representing the government and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Mualimin Abdi of the Law and Human Rights Ministry gave a similar argument during the hearing, saying that the disputed provision '€œdid not rule out the possibility for the party with the most votes to propose the [winning] candidate'€ for House speaker.

Although he later said the government and the President would respect any decision made by the court, Mualimin argued that the country'€™s administrative system had already undergone changes and that the new mechanism was a logical extension of them.

The law, which was enacted one day before the July 9 presidential election, was viewed by some as a preemptive strike by the Prabowo Subianto-led Red-and-White Coalition against the PDI-P-led coalition and president-elect Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo.

Represented by their lawyers, some lawmakers set to be inaugurated on Oct. 1 also presented arguments in favor of the new mechanism.

Expecting the new provision to hold, lawmaker Fahri Hamzah of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), for example, demanded the court to announce a swift ruling before Oct. 1, when new lawmakers were expected to be inaugurated.