The Deadline for Submitting Lawsuit Regarding Election Result May be Too Short

The new Election Law Bill contains a regulation that candidate may only submit lawsuit regarding the result of legislative elections no later than three consecutive days after the result announcement. Many people think the deadline is too short.

In the same Bill, the deadline for submitting lawsuit regarding the result of presidential election is three working days. The Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem) expects the same time duration for legislative elections.

“The deadline three consecutive days may be incriminating for some candidates, especially if the election result is announced on Friday. In order to be able to submit a lawsuit, a candidate need to prepare all the necessary documents, which takes a lot of time,” says Fadli Ramadhanil, during a public discussion titled “Law Enforcement in the New Election Law Bill” in Jakarta (11/06).

The Bill also does not specify the time limitation for the Constitutional Court (MK) to assess and adjudicate a dispute regarding election result. In the previous Law, MK has maximum 30 days to handle a case of dispute.

“The new law should also regulate the deadline for MK to handle a dispute,” Fadli says.