JAKARTA (Yosefardi) – Legal team from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) has filed a lawsuit to the Constitutional Court against the newly revised Legislative Institution Law (called MD3).
Trimedya Panjaitan, Coordinator of PDI-P legal team, said PDI-P questioned some articles in the newly law, especially Article 84 of the law which regulates a voting mechanism to select the next Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR), instead of automatically granting the position to PDI-P as the winner of 2014 legislative election.
Trimedya said that Article 82 of the previous MD3 Law No. 27/2009 previously regulated that the position of the Speaker of the House must be automatically granted to political party winning the legislative election.
The newly MD3 Law also becomes the target of criticism from civil society and even the leaders of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The newly MD3 Law, specifically Article 245 Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 3, is allegedly giving such impunity for lawmakers from investigation of the law enforcers.
The amendment of MD3 Law itself has been passed into law in a plenary meeting of the DPR on Jul. 8, 2014. Three among nine factions at the DPR have walked out from the plenary meeting as a form of protest to the amendment. They are PDI-P, PKB, and Hanura. (haryantos@yosefardi.biz)