Constitutional Court: Articles Of Deportation Of Foreigners Perpetrators Of Constitutional Drug Cases

JAKARTA - The Constitutional Court (MK) stated that Article 146 paragraph (1) and paragraph (2) of Law Number 35 of 2009 concerning Narcotics which regulates the expulsion of foreign nationals (WNA) who commit narcotics crimes remain constitutional.

"To try, reject the petitioner's application in its entirety," said Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Suhartoyo reading the verdict Number 95/PUU-XXII/2024 reported by ANTARA, Thursday, September 26.

This judicial review case was filed by Yuyun Yuanita. She is the wife of a Swiss citizen who was expelled from the jurisdiction of the Republic of Indonesia and banned from re-entering for committing a narcotics crime.

According to Yuyun, the article creates injustice and discrimination for couples and children resulting from marriage to foreigners who commit narcotics crimes in the territory of the Republic of Indonesia.

The application of the article, Yuyun's argument, caused him not to be able to gather with his husband and father because foreigners who were proven to have committed narcotics crimes were expelled and prohibited from re-entering Indonesia.

On that basis, Yuyun asked the Constitutional Court to request that the eviction and prohibition of re-entry for foreigners who commit narcotics crimes are exempted for foreigners who have legally married Indonesian citizens and have had children from the marriage.

Against this argument, the Constitutional Court stated that the regulation regarding the deportation and ban on re-entry that Yuyun questioned was the correct legal politics and was needed as part of the state's obligation to protect the entire Indonesian nation.

"Moreover, so far, crimes or narcotics crimes have not been handled properly and even tend to remain quantitatively high or massive in the context of the number of cases, both perpetrators and victims," said Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat.

According to the Constitutional Court, in terms of legal needs for eradicating narcotics and psychotropic substances, the arrangements contained in Article 146 paragraph (1) and paragraph (2) of the Narcotics Law are to fulfill the legal needs of preventing and taking action against narcotics crimes in the jurisdiction of the Republic of Indonesia.

"In this context, the regulation can be considered to have legal politics to protect the entire Indonesian nation and all of Indonesia's bloodshed as stated in the Fourth Alinea of the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia," said Arief.

Meanwhile, from an international legal perspective, the deportation and deterrence measures are possible and have been regulated in the Narcotics Eradication Convention and Psychotropics.

The Constitutional Court assessed that Yuyun's request was not in line with the spirit of eradicating narcotics in the territory of the Republic of Indonesia.

It is feared that the new meaning as requested by the applicant can actually become a new mode of narcotics trafficking carried out by transnational organized crime groups in Indonesia.