9-11-2023 (JAKARTA) The Constitutional Court’s Ethics Council has taken the unprecedented step of removing Chief Justice Anwar Usman from his leadership position and prohibiting him from participating in election disputes. This decision follows an investigation that found him guilty of a “serious ethical violation” in using his authority to facilitate his nephew’s candidacy for the vice presidency.
Though Anwar was not dishonorably discharged, this move has brought a sense of relief to petitioners, legal experts, and activists who have been concerned about the credibility of the institution.
The investigation centered around Chief Justice Anwar’s involvement in enabling his nephew, Surakarta Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to run for a high office by allowing exceptions to the age requirements for presidential and vice presidential candidates under certain circumstances.
The three-member ethics panel, headed by former Chief Justice Jimly Ashiddiqie, determined that Anwar had committed a “serious ethical violation” by failing to maintain impartiality and not recusing himself from a controversial case last month.
Anwar was also found to have violated the principle of judicial independence by allowing “outside parties” to influence the court’s decision-making process, resulting in the removal of legal barriers that would have prevented Gibran, the eldest son of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, from entering the 2024 presidential race.
Jimly announced the council’s decision, stating, “The council orders the deputy chief justice to immediately hold a meeting to elect a new chief justice, without [Anwar] having the right to be nominated in the process.”
The investigation was triggered by 21 complaints filed against all nine justices of the Constitutional Court, with 15 specifically addressing Anwar’s influence on the court’s decision to change the age requirement for candidates just before the registration period closed.
Anwar initially recused himself from ruling on three petitions seeking to alter candidate age provisions. However, he later participated in a petition where several justices changed their stance, and he cast the deciding vote in a 5-4 ruling to allow candidates who had served as elected regional leaders to be exempt from the 40-year age minimum.
All nine justices were reprimanded for failing to address Anwar’s conflict of interest and for fostering a culture of “ewuh pekewuh,” a Javanese term indicating reluctance to confront illicit practices and neglect of equality among justices.
While activists and legal experts commend the ethics panel’s investigation, some believe that the council should have removed Anwar from office rather than imposing a “compromised sanction,” given the gravity of the ethics violation.
One of the complainants, Yance Arizona, a constitutional law lecturer at Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University, expressed disappointment that the sanction did not align with the court’s provisions regarding the ethics council.
The council clarified that while it had the authority to investigate ethics violations involving court justices, it could not determine the validity of the court ruling that altered candidate eligibility requirements. However, efforts to reverse the controversial court decision from October are underway, with five new petitions requesting a reexamination of age limits, excluding Anwar.
The court is scheduled to hold a hearing on one such petition filed by a law student at Yogyakarta’s Nahdlatul Ulama University. This petition advocates stricter requirements for electoral candidates, limiting presidential and vice-presidential candidates under the age of 40 to reelected governors.
Tuesday’s ruling was welcomed by the campaign team of presidential candidate Ganjar Pranowo and his running mate Mahfud MD, who commended the ethics council for preventing Anwar from adjudicating election disputes in the upcoming year, acknowledging the clear conflict of interest.
The campaign team of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and his running mate, Gibran, expressed gratitude that their candidates can still participate in the upcoming election, and they called on the Indonesian public to have confidence in their campaign’s success.
“Our team has ensured that the Prabowo-Gibran nomination is not affected in any way by the court’s ethics council decision,” said Hinca Panjaitan, a Democratic Party politician who leads the campaign team’s legal division.
