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fter frequent attempts to relinquish the authority to settle regional election disputes, the Constitutional Court promised President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Monday it would handle disputes in next year’s concurrent polls.

The pledge was made following a closed-door meeting between Constitutional Court chief justice Arief Hidayat and Jokowi on Monday at the Presidential Palace.

Over 100 regions across the country are scheduled to hold simultaneous regional elections in February 2017 after the House of Representatives passed the amendment to the Regional Elections (Pilkada) Law, which was drafted by the government to accommodate a number of recent Constitutional Court rulings.

“The President told us to continue just as we did when handling disputes in the 2015 regional elections,” Arief said. He later expressed optimism that the court would be able to do its duty as the number of regional elections in 2017 Pilkada is less than in 2015, when 269 regions voted.

The court had sought to surrender the dispute-resolution authority after its former chief justice Akil Mochtar was jailed for accepting bribes to favor certain candidates in election dispute cases at the court
in 2013.

In a controversial ruling in mid 2014, the Constitutional Court relinquished its authority to handle regional election disputes. Three out of nine justices dissented at that time, including Arief. The ruling, however, stipulated that the court would continue to hear local election complaints until a new law annulled such authority.

The court tried to persuade the House of Representatives last year to remove its authority to handle local election disputes through an amendment to the Pilkada Law, but to no avail.

The court later settled almost all the 2015 election disputes with only two outstanding, those of Mamberamo Raya Regency in Papua and Muna regency in Southeast Sulawesi, due to technical matters.

The court has begun preparations ahead of the elections by, for example, a plan to synchronize internal regulations--that include procedures for hearing election disputes--with the new Pilkada Law.

The recently passed Pilkada law, however, was not on the table during the court’s meeting with Jokowi as they deemed such discussions would be unethical due to the possibility of the court hearing judicial review petitions challenging the law.

Until now, the court has yet to receive any official request to challenge the law despite a number of parties previously suggesting they would file petitions at the court. For instance, the General Elections Commission (KPU), which is concerned that a provision in the law — which stipulates that the KPU may only draft regulations after first consulting with the House and government — could restrict its independence. “We hope the President will immediately sign the law to provide us time to handle any judicial review petitions properly,” Arief add