The authority of Indonesia’s Constitutional Court (Mahkamah Konstitusi – MK) in resolving disputes over regional election results has often been questioned and has generated considerable debate. Some of the Court’s decisions have been criticized for overriding the principle of popular sovereignty and disregarding the electoral mandate obtained by elected regional leaders. Nevertheless, Constitutional Court rulings that order recounts or repeat voting are not issued without justification. It is difficult to deny that regional elections in the Reform Era have frequently been marked by systematic, structured, and widespread violations.
Such violations pose a serious threat to popular sovereignty. The will of voters is often undermined by practices that are carried out in a systematic, structured, and massive manner. These violations are notoriously difficult to detect and are often beyond the reach of existing enforcement mechanisms during the electoral process. Procedures for addressing electoral crimes, administrative violations, ethical breaches by election officials, and electoral disputes have frequently proven insufficient to deal with such misconduct effectively.
Against this backdrop, The Constitutional Court Is Not a Calculator Court makes an important contribution to contemporary constitutional law discourse. The book provides an in-depth examination of the legal reasoning and constitutional arguments underlying the Constitutional Court’s decisions on regional election result disputes between 2008 and 2011. It explores the scope of the Court’s authority, the various forms of systematic, structured, and widespread violations that have served as the basis for its rulings, and the evolution of the Court’s jurisprudence in this area.
The Constitutional Court’s progressive approach deserves recognition for its role in upholding the Constitution. The Court has acted not only as the guardian of the Constitution but also as the guardian of democracy. At the same time, however, critics have argued that the Court has occasionally exceeded its proper role in defending popular sovereignty. Efforts to protect the will of the people can sometimes become entangled with competing interests and conflicting interpretations. The challenge lies in the absence of clear and universally accepted standards for determining when popular sovereignty has been violated, leaving significant room for judicial discretion.
In this regard, the book offers an initial framework for identifying and categorizing systematic, structured, and widespread electoral violations. This framework may serve as a useful reference for lawmakers in developing clearer legal guidelines for resolving regional election result disputes before the Constitutional Court. Ultimately, such guidance could help address weaknesses in the current dispute resolution mechanism without requiring the removal of the Court’s authority in this area.
The discussion presented in this book is valuable not only as a source of recommendations for legislators and practical guidance for legal practitioners, but also as an important academic contribution, given the limited literature available on this particular aspect of the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction.
The recommendations contained in this book reflect the author’s observations, monitoring efforts, and analysis of the Constitutional Court’s exercise of its authority in resolving regional election result disputes during the period 2008–2011.
This publication was originally available through Gramedia bookstores at a price of IDR 50,000.
