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Election activists push for an omnibus election law
A group of election researchers are pushing for the merging of three current laws on elections into an omnibus law
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A group of election researchers are pushing for the merging of three current laws on elections into an omnibus law.
The researchers released in Jakarta on Friday a book that contained their version of the omnibus law, called The Study On The Codification On Election Laws.
"One of the main instruments of democracy is a legal framework that is consistent, which we don't have in Indonesia. We have to face constant law change, where there is no election without a new law," Association on Election and Democracy (Perludem) executive director Titi Anggraini said during the book launching in Kuningan, South Jakarta.
The process to merge the three laws, which are Law No. 42/2008 on presidential elections, Law No. 8/2012 on legislative elections and Law No. 32/2004 on regional administration, turned out to be complicated, she said.
"The regulations on elections in our laws are not consistent, synchronized or harmonized and they overlap with each other," said Titi.
She added that the legislature had to consider implementing a single omnibus law, instead of highly fragmented laws, because the country was slated to hold simultaneous elections in 2019.
Andalas University state administrative law professor Saldi Isra said that the omnibus law would greatly help with law enforcement during elections.
"Right now, the definition of money politics, for example, varies between one law and another. If we merge these laws into one book, then we could have the same standard," he said on Friday.
Titi said that the idea of an omnibus law came after seeing the 2014 presidential election dispute at the Constitutional Court (MK).
"We saw how intense the debate was between experts just because Law No. 42/2008 on presidential elections did not stipulate DPKTb [additional special voters lists], even when there was a ruling from the MK that guaranteed the use of DPKTb," she added.
DPKTb are lists of eligible voters not registered on the fixed voters list (DPT), but who were allowed to vote using their ID cards as identification.
University of Indonesia law expert Topo Santoso said that the book would be advocated to political parties.
"Looking ahead, we have to convince the political leaders," he said. (nfo)(++++)
