JAKARTA, LEGAL LITERACY – The Constitutional Court again held a follow-up hearing on the General Election Results Dispute (PHPU) on Tuesday (28/05/2024) in Panel 3 Hearing Room, Building 1 of the Constitutional Court (MK). In the hearing, the Court confirmed the applicant's attorney regarding a letter from the Aceh Party questioning the reason for the case with number 144-01-21-01/PHPU.DPR-DPRD-XXII/2024 is still being examined further, even though a letter of withdrawal of the application had been sent previously.

This hearing was chaired by Constitutional Justice Arief Hidayat, accompanied by Constitutional Justice Anwar Usman and Constitutional Justice Enny Nurbaningsih. This case was filed by the Aceh Party, represented by Muzakir Manaf as Chairman and Kamaruddin Abubakar as Secretary General, regarding the filling of candidates for members of the Aceh Utara Regional People's Representative Council (DPRD) for the Aceh Utara Electoral District (Dapil) 5.

At the previous hearing, Monday (03/05/2024), the principal applicants Muzakir Manaf and Kamaruddin Abubakar withdrew their application. However, the Applicant's legal counsel and interested legislative candidates stated that the withdrawal was false because the signature of the Secretary General of the Aceh Party was declared false.

The Chairman of the Panel Assembly, Arief Hidayat, conveyed that this matter would be reported to the Judge Deliberation Meeting (RPH) and the parties would be summoned in the next 1-2 days to decide whether this case would be continued or decided unacceptable/dropped.

“We will immediately report it in the RPH which was attended by 9 Judges. In the next 1-2 days, we will summon the parties again,” said Arief Hidayat.

In his application, the applicant argued that there was a difference in votes between what was correct according to the applicant and what had been determined by the General Election Commission. The applicant stated that there was an illegal addition of votes for the Aceh Party legislative candidate for the Aceh Utara 5 electoral district, number 2, Abdul Muthaleb, S.Sos, M.A.P, during the recapitulation at the Syamtalira Aron and Tanah Pasir sub-district levels. This addition of votes caused Abdul Muthaleb's number of votes to increase from 2,924 (according to the C plano results and C copy results) to 3,887 in Dapil 5, as stated in the D sub-district results DPRK and D Kabko DPRK Results.