Indonesia - May 2024

The Supreme Court ruled on 30 May that the minimum age requirement for gubernatorial candidates applies not from when a candidate is nominated but for when they would be sworn into office. The ruling was widely interpreted as a carve-out to permit outgoing President Joko Widodo’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, to run for governor of Jakarta in an election scheduled for 27 November. Kaesang will be 29 on election day but will turn 30 before he would be sworn in. In October 2023, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court made a comparable ruling that allowed Jokowi’s elder son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run (successfully) for vice president in the 2024 presidential election.

Sources: Jakarta Post, The Diplomat, International IDEA

Indonesia’s parliament and government have agreed on a bill that will shorten the tenure of Constitutional Court judges from 15 to 10 years, require approval from appointment authorities (the president, the Supreme Court, and parliament) every five years or be removed from office, and overhaul the court’s ethics counsel to add the president, parliamentarians and members of the Supreme Court. Some members of the court have clashed with outgoing President Joko Widodo’s administration in several high-profile occasions, most recently in a ruling over the validity of the most recent election. Legal experts warn the changes are intended to subjugate the powerful court to the legislative and executive branches and punish the three justices who dissented from a broader ruling supporting  dismissing electoral challenges in the 2024 general elections. Those three judges will be the first whose seats are up for review. Governing MPs argued the changes were politically neutral and aimed at ensuring the court’s accountability and efficacy.

Sources: Benar News, Reuters, Perludem