UIN Sunan Kalijaga Student Explanation Regarding The Presidential Threshold Lawsuit Granted By The Constitutional Court

Four students of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Enika Maya Oktavia, Rizki Maulana Syafei, Faisal Nasirul Haq, and Tsalis Khoirul Fatna, plaintiffs of the presidential threshold to the Constitutional Court. Friday (3/1/2025). (Photo BETWEEN ANTARA/Hery Sidik)

JAKARTA - Four students of the State Islamic University (UIN) Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta stated that the presidential threshold lawsuit to the Constitutional Court which was later granted by the Constitutional Court judge was a personal representation and not an opinion of a university institution.

"Our petition is a representation, a personal application from ourselves and is not a representation of the opinion of our institution, UIN Sunan Kalijaga," said Enika Maya Oktavia, one of the four plaintiffs, at a press conference at UIN Yogyakarta as reported by ANTARA, Friday, January 3.

The lawsuit was filed by four students of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, namely Enika Maya Oktavia, Rizki Maulana Syafei, Faisal Nasirul Haq, and Tsalis Khoirul Fatna. They are final year students at the Faculty of Sharia and Law of UIN Sunan Kalijaga.

After several trials, the Constitutional Court finally decided to abolish the presidential threshold or the presidential and vice presidential nomination threshold which had been set at 20 percent. This is stated in the Constitutional Court's decision case number 62/PUU-XXII/2024 which was read out on Thursday, January 2, 2025.

According to him, the petition for a lawsuit against Article 222 of the Election Law does not receive intervention from any party, neither institutions nor parties interested in politics in Indonesia.

"We also emphasize that our petition does not receive intervention from organizations, institutions, or any political party," he said.

He said the lawsuit against the threshold for presidential and vice presidential candidacy was purely carried out as a form of academic struggle and also the struggle for constitutional advocacy.

According to the plaintiff, studies on the presidential threshold have started in 2023, when they joined the Constitutional Observer Community (KPK) at the faculty. That year, their team entered the final in the debate held by Bawaslu.

"This constitutional observer community is a community that focuses on studies of the constitutional approach and also on responses to constitutional issues. In 2023, our debate team entered the final realm, which in the final round used a presidential threshold," he said.

From there they began compiling drafts and writing related to a lawsuit to the Constitutional Court in February 2024. From February 2024 to January 2025, they continued to process at the Constitutional Court, and even had to undergo seven offline and online trials.

"As many as 32 decisions of the Constitutional Court previously stated that they were not accepted and rejected by the article, the rejection of these applications, then in the 33rd petition, finally the Constitutional Court can strengthen the wishes of the Indonesian people," he said.

Meanwhile, the Dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Law of UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Professor Ali Sodikin, said that the granting of the case regarding the presidential threshold in the Constitutional Court, whose applicants were submitted by four students, was a landmark decision because dozens of requests for judicial reviews regarding the article. The Constitutional Court has always rejected it.

"In history, this is a judicial review of the presidential threshold granted, the applicant is our student who is still studying democracy and constitutional law at the Faculty of Sharia and Law," he said.