Arsul Sani is considered to have the right to hear 2024 election disputes

JAKARTA – Constitutional judge Arsul Sani is considered to have the right to hear disputes over the 2024 election. This is because he has been appointed and registered as a constitutional judge.

“First, talking about Pak Arsul Sani who is deemed not to be allowed to preside over the trial, that is excessive. Why? Because after all he has been appointed and is registered as a constitutional judge,” said political observer and Executive Director of the Indonesia Political Review (IPR) Ujang Komarudin, Friday (22/3/2024).

“This means having the rights, having the authority, having the responsibility to be able to lead the proceedings because they have the same rights as other members,” he continued.

He also responded to criticism that there would be no conflict of interest because of his background as a politician. Ujang believes that Arsul Sani is not the only judge.

“Many judges participated in the session with Mr. Arsul Sani. This means that conflict of interest will not occur, because Mr. Arsul Sani is not alone, he is accompanied by other judges, in fact the other judges are in the majority, more numerous, ” he said.

He hopes that this will not lead to the opinion that it is as if the Constitutional Court is always involved in politics. “Because we must somehow maintain the dignity of the Constitutional Court as an honorable institution, as a dignified institution, we must maintain its honor and dignity, in the context of being able to resolve election disputes objectively and independently,” he added.

According to him, everyone should give full trust to the constitutional judges in order to be statesmanlike and will decide the election dispute as fairly, honestly, truly, and as best as possible.

“The fourth is that the Constitutional Court was once led by Hamdan Zoelva, who in fact was a former cadre of a political party, and once presided over election disputes and all his decisions were objective and independent. And this is a historical record,” he said.

He continued, Anwar Usman had been banned. If Arsul Sani is banned, the number of judges will decrease. “Not to mention that we don’t know if there is a force majeure or other extraordinary event affecting the Constitutional Court judges which causes the number of judges to be reduced again,” he added.

This means, he continued, there will be fewer and more likely deadlocks in the decision. “Therefore, all the eyes of the Indonesian people are to be able to give the Constitutional Court judges, including Mr. Arsul Sani, the opportunity to decide cases as well as possible, honestly, fairly, objectively and independently, whatever their background,” he concluded. .

(abd)