KPU Calls Prima Party Election Lawsuit To The Central Jakarta District Court As Wrong Target

JAKARTA - The General Elections Commission (KPU) plans to file an appeal against the decision of the Central Jakarta District Court (PN) which ordered the 2024 elections to be postponed.

The decision of the Central Jakarta District Court won the lawsuit by the Adil Makmur People's Party (Prima) which was declared not to have passed the administrative verification stage by the KPU.

KPU RI Commissioner Idham Kholik views that the civil election lawsuit filed by Prima to the Central Jakarta District Court has been misdirected from the start.

He emphasized that the decisions issued by the KPU related to the stages of the election, in particular with the determination of political parties participating in the election, were objects of dispute that were only processed at the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) and the State Administrative Court (PTUN).

"The process dispute is at the Administrative Court because this is civil, it is categorized as civil. So the election law places the process dispute at the Administrative Court, apart from the Bawaslu," Idham told reporters, Thursday, March 3.

Moreover, continued Idham, there is no term for postponement of elections due to civil disputes in court in Law Number 17 of 2017 concerning General Elections.

"In the election law there are two terms, there are the terms follow-up elections and follow-up elections," he said.

Initially, the Prima Party sued the KPU to the Central Jakarta District Court because they felt they had been harmed by the organizers of the election. This is because the KPU stated that the Prima Party did not meet the requirements in undergoing the registration and verification of political parties as candidates for the 2024 Election.

As a result, the Prima Party could not continue the election stages to factual verification. Prima Party does not accept. In their study, Prima said that the KPU was not thorough in carrying out administrative verification.

Prima also views the Political Party Information System (Sipol) as problematic and causes the party to not pass the administrative verification stage.

Prima's civil lawsuit against the Central Jakarta District Court with the defendant, namely the Indonesian KPU, was filed on December 8. The Central Jakarta District Court decision came out with case number 757/Pdt.G/2022/PN Jkt.Pst on Thursday, March 2.

The following is the verdict of the Central Jakarta District Court:

1. Accept the plaintiff's lawsuit in its entirety;

2. Declare that Plaintiff is a political party that was harmed in the administrative verification by Defendant;

3. Declare the defendant has committed an unlawful act;

4. Ordering Defendant to pay material compensation of IDR 500,000,000 to Plaintiff;

5. Punish the defendant not to carry out the remaining stages of the 2024 General Election since this decision was pronounced and carry out the general election stages from the beginning for approximately 2 years 4 months 7 days;

6. Declare that the decision, in this case, can be executed immediately (uitvoerbaar bij voorraad);

7. Determined that the court costs be charged to the defendant in the amount of IDR 410,000.