T

he government is standing the decision to issue two government regulations in lieu of law (Perppu) that will bring back a direct-election mechanism for local heads, arguing that they are in line with the Constitution.

The government also demanded the Constitutional Court reject the seven petitions challenging the two Perppu during a hearing on Tuesday.

The Constitutional Court is currently handling seven judicial review petitions challenging two Perppu issued by then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono just as the House of Representatives is planning to start deliberating the controversial regulations in January next year.

Representing the government, director of law coordination at the Law and Human Rights Ministry Wicipto Setiadi told the court that the issuance of the Perppu, which is one of many legal types of regulations in the country'€™s legal system, had gone through the proper procedures.

Wicipto rejected the plaintiffs'€™ arguments that said the Perppu had not met the primary requirement of being issued under '€œemergency conditions'€.

The two Perppu, Wicipto said, were needed as a response to the '€œemergency conditions'€ that resulted from the current regulations, particularly the 2014 Regional Election Law (Pilkada Law), which regulated that local heads would be elected under an indirect representative-based mechanism.

'€œThere was indeed an emergency that needed a quick settlement at that time. We saw many objections to the Pilkada Law, which was deemed by people to be violating democratic and human rights since it annulled the citizens'€™ right to vote,'€ Wicipto said during Tuesday'€™s hearing.

The president, Wicipto added, had a '€œsubjective authority'€ to issue a Perppu, while its objectivity would later be decided by the House.

The seven petitions were filed by several individuals, including an election watchdog and some legal observers, a former Jakarta Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) chairman and two former members of the House, as well as a group calling itself the Forum of Legal and Constitutional Review (FKHK). During the first hearing in mid-November, they argued that the Perppu had not met the primary requirement of being issued under '€œemergency conditions'€. However, some plaintiffs had demanded that the court scrap the Perppu as they wanted to ensure the country would use the direct local-election mechanism, while some wanted to go back to the 2014 Pilkada Law.

The court had previously reminded all plaintiffs that should the court annul the Perppu, it could create a legal vacuum since the 2014 law would not immediately take effect. The court has also yet to respond to the plaintiffs'€™ demands to speed up the hearing before the House discusses the Perppu in January.

Justice Patrialis Akbar told Wicipto to elaborate on the government'€™s arguments regarding the '€œemergency situation'€ during the next hearing.

'€œIt is still unclear. Give us more explanations about the '€˜emergency situation'€™. What kind of emergency situation was it and who were the people who raised the objections to the Pilkada Law?'€ Patrialis asked.