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Opposition to House's plan for judge evaluation grows
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In this file photo, the nine-panel bench leads a hearing on the 2019 presidential election dispute at the Constitutional Court in Central Jakarta on June 27, 2019. (JP/Donny Fernando)
O
pposition to a controversial plan by the House of Representatives to revise a law that will allow lawmakers to evaluate and remove sitting Constitutional Court justices is growing.
Lawmakers have been moving fast to push the revision to the Constitutional Court Law less than six months after the plan was put on the table in late September, the same time when the lawmakers abruptly removed the court’s deputy chief justice before his tenure ended.
A working committee of House Commission III overseeing legal affairs was formed on Thursday and is set to begin deliberating the revision after lawmakers return from a three-week recess in mid-March.
The revision is controversial because it will allow the House, the president, and the Supreme Court to evaluate every five years, or at any time as necessary, each of the three sitting justices they appoint, without specifying a clear mechanism on how to evaluate the justices.
Critics fear this risks making justices susceptible to political interference that could potentially influence the court’s future decisions on public challenges to numerous controversial laws, like the Criminal Code and the jobs law, or on possible election disputes after the country hosts the general election next year. Currently the court is reviewing a petition filed by an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) member and several other plaintiffs that seeks to restore a closed-list system for the legislative elections.
Read also: Court ruling may sway 2024 election results
Jimly Asshiddiqie, the Constitutional Court's first chief justice, expressed concern over lawmakers’ concerted attempt to subjugate the court.
