JAKARTA, LITERASIHUKUM.COM — The Constitutional Court (MK) stated that it cannot accept a petition requesting a change in the nomenclature of “Sumatera Selatan” to “Sumatra Selatan”. The Constitutional Court petition was submitted by Insan Kamil and Andhita Putri Maharani, and decided in case Number 57 of PUU-XXIV of 2026 on Monday (16/3/2026). According to the Constitutional Court, the petitioner do not have the legal standing to submit the said review.

In the consideration read by the Deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Saldi Isra, the Court assessed that the reasons for constitutional loss submitted by the petitioners did not meet the requirements. Both elaborated on their concrete experiences as language ambassadors, but the Constitutional Court stated that the description did not have a direct connection with the requirement of constitutional rights loss. The Court also highlighted the absence of evidence that the petitioners had previously conveyed the issue of the difference in spelling between “Sumatera” and “Sumatra” to the regional government or lawmakers.

This case has attracted attention from the beginning because the object of the lawsuit is not criminal, election, or state institutional norms, but the spelling of the province's name in Law Number 9 of 2023 concerning South Sumatra Province. During the trial process, the petitioners, who are Language Ambassadors of South Sumatra Province 2025 revised their petition and requested that the phrase “Sumatera” in the legal norm be declared conditionally unconstitutional as “Sumatra”. They based their arguments on linguistic, historical aspects, and the order of legal nomenclature.

The main arguments of the petitioners rest on KBBI Daring. In the official entry of KBBI, “Sumatra” recorded as the standard form, whereas “Sumatera” stated as non-standard form. This linguistic basis is what the legal experts used to assess that the naming of provinces in laws should follow the standard form of Indonesian.

However, this Constitutional Court Decision is important precisely because the Court did not address the legal experts' opinion regarding which form is normatively correct, “Sumatra” or “Sumatera”. The case stopped earlier on the matter of Legal Standing. That is, the Constitutional Court has not provided a constitutional assessment of the linguistic arguments of the petitioners, but rather stated that the petition was inadmissible because the basic formal requirements were not met.

Thus, the official name of the province in Law Number 9 of 2023 remains “South Sumatra Province”. This decision also reaffirms an important principle in judicial review of a law cases in the Constitutional Court: no matter how strong the substantive arguments presented, the petition will not be examined further if the petitioner is unable to prove the existence of specific, actual, and relevant constitutional rights losses with the norm being challenged.