The Constitutional Court Rejects The Democratic Party's Lawsuit Regarding The Results Of The Banten Provincial DPR Legislative Election

JAKARTA - The Constitutional Court (MK) stated that it rejected the Democratic Party's request to question the vote acquisition for filling out members of the DPR RI for the Banten 2 electoral district because the argument for the application was considered groundless according to the law in its entirety.

"Rejected the applicant's application in its entirety," said Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Suhartoyo in a hearing reading the verdict at the Plenary Court Session Room, Jakarta, Monday.

Case Number 286-01-14-16/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 is a continuation of the Constitutional Court Decision Number 183-01-14-16/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024. At that time, the Constitutional Court granted part of the Democratic Party's request.

Through the Constitutional Court Decision Number 183, the KPU was ordered to screen the votes acquired by the PDI-P as Related Parties II between C. Hasil-DPR and D. Hasil Kecamatan-DPR at 20 polling stations, within 30 days of the decision being read out on June 3, 2024.

In this new case, the Democratic Party argued that the KPU as the respondent did not implement the Constitutional Court Decision Number 183 in accordance with the verdict.

In this case, the Democratic Party highlighted the missing documents when the ballot box was opened. The Democratic Party said that the Serang City KPU removed C. Hasil-DPR for PDI-P (PDIP) votes at 20 polling stations in Serang City.

Regarding the loss of C. Hasil-DPR, the Serang City KPU re-calculated ballots, in accordance with the advice of the Serang City Bawaslu which refers to the Bawaslu Circular (SE) Number 6200.1 of 2024. In fact, the previous Constitutional Court's decision only ordered the screening of PDI-P votes.

However, according to the Constitutional Court, the KPU's action to recalculate ballots at 20 polling stations has actually fulfilled the principles of transparency and justice, especially since the KPU as the organizer of the election is obliged to maintain the purity of voters' votes.

"Thus, the use of SE Bawaslu 6200.1/2024 as the defendant's basis in following up on the decision of the Court by recalculating the ballots at the 20 polling stations according to the Court can be justified. Thus, the argument of the applicant a quo is not legally reasonable," said Constitutional Justice M. Guntur Hamzah reading out the Court's considerations.

Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court reminded election organizers to maintain the authenticity and validity of the data. The Constitutional Court emphasized that election organizers and supervisors must pay attention to the governance of ballot boxes so that similar incidents do not occur in the future.

In addition, the Democrat Party also objected to the actions of the Serang City KPU which juxtaposed the votes acquired by all political parties from the results of the vote recount at the 20 polling stations. According to the Democrats, this was not in accordance with the previous Constitutional Court's decision, which should only be a cross-section for the PDI-P vote.

Moreover, based on the recount, there was an additional 39 votes and 189 votes for the Democratic Party because it was declared invalid.

Regarding the argument, the Constitutional Court said that the actions of the Serang City KPU did not reduce the essence of the cross-section ordered by the Constitutional Court, considering that this was done because of special conditions or stagnation of voice-screening data at 20 polling stations in question.

Furthermore, related to the petitioner's petitum asking the Constitutional Court to determine the vote acquisition of the Democratic Party for filling in the DPR RI members in the Electoral District II of Banten as many as 142,279 votes, has lost the rationality basis. This is because after the ballot box was opened to the recount of ballots, it turned out that there was a change in the vote acquisition.

"Although the applicant argued that his vote was reduced by 189 votes because it was declared invalid, the Court did not find sufficient convincing evidence of deliberately made by the respondent to reduce the applicant's vote results after the recount of the ballot," said Guntur.

In addition, the Constitutional Court also rejected the argument of the Democratic Party which said that the KPU did not implement the Constitutional Court Decision Number 183 in accordance with the specified time limit. The Constitutional Court stated that it could understand the need for time to complete the entire series of voice screenings.

"The petitioner's application is not legally justified in its entirety," said Guntur.