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New MK chief justice promises integrity, fair rulings
New leaders: Newly elected Constitutional Court chief justice Arief Hidayat (left) and deputy chief justice Anwar Usman pose for photographers after their election at the court building in Jakarta on Monday
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span class="inline inline-center">New leaders: Newly elected Constitutional Court chief justice Arief Hidayat (left) and deputy chief justice Anwar Usman pose for photographers after their election at the court building in Jakarta on Monday. JP/DON
Tough tasks await two new Constitutional Court (MK) leaders, chief justice Arief Hidayat and his deputy Anwar Usman, amid mounting demands by the public to uphold their rights as citizens.
Arief, who was previously the deputy chief justice, got the top post in a closed-door meeting that lasted around two hours when the nine justices reached a consensus on Monday morning, while Anwar won the deputy post after four rounds of voting to replace Arief as deputy.
After their appointment, Arief said they would ensure the court would continuously try to improve the quality of its rulings, as well as ensuring those rulings were obeyed by all state officials and citizens.
'[Hopefully] we can work together to build the country in achieving the country's goals because the judicial, legislative and executive branches share a similar goal of a just and prosperous people,' said Arief on Monday.
Despite its critical role in the nation the court has been under scrutiny and its decisions have on occasion been challenged.
The prosecution of former chief justice Akil Mochtar, who had been caught taking bribes to engineer the results of local election disputes, marred the court's image.
Recently, the Supreme Court issued a circular that contravened a Constitutional Court ruling, that had annulled a limit on case reviews to one time only.
Legal analysts have said that, in terms of the quality of its rulings, the current bench does not meet the standards of previous incumbents.
There has also been an increasing trend of citizens filing judicial reviews regarding critical issues in society. One such case, which is still ongoing at the court, is a judicial review of an article on religion in the Marriage Law, a case which may grant legal certainty to interfaith marriages in the country.
Arief, 58, was a Diponegoro University law professor when he got the justice seat following a selection process overseen by the House of Representatives in 2013. During the selection process Arief expressed a conservative stance.
Arief, who was born in Semarang, Central Java, once raised a dissenting opinion when the court rejected a judicial review filed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) over the 2014 law on legislative institutions (MD3 Law) to pave the way for the party to pick leaders of the House last year.
Fifty-eight-year-old Anwar spent a long career at the Supreme Court before being appointed as a Constitutional Court justice in 2011.
Before starting his career as a judge, Anwar had been an elementary school teacher in Jakarta.
Newly inaugurated justice I Dewa Gede Palguna, who recently replaced former chief justice Hamdan Zoelva, reminded the bench during the selection process that a Constitutional Court justice should remain independent. 'An independent, wise, and professional court should be seen concretely through the nine justices and be reflected in its rulings [...] Symbolically, it should be reflected through the chief justice,' Palguna said.
Justice Maria Farida Indrati said good leadership was needed to allow them to face the 'tough jobs that await because more and more people have an awareness about the Constitutional Court and that they can challenge laws there.'
Another tough job, Maria added, would be when the country held concurrent legislative and presidential elections in 2019.
Arief's election gave new hope given that his two predecessors ' Hamdan and Mahfud MD ' came from political backgrounds, said Feri Amsari, a researcher at the Center for Constitutional Studies (Pusako) at Andalas University
in West Sumatra.
Feri said one of the challenges was how to ensure other state institutions and the public complied with its rulings. According to Feri, the chief justice has an important role when court deliberations reached deadlock.
Erwin Natosmal of the Indonesian Legal Roundtable (ILR), however, said Arief was not the best pick although he was among the best chief justice candidates given his experience as a deputy chief.
