Findings Without Remedy: The Indonesian Constitutional Court and the Lawsuit to Disqualify the Vice President
—Febriansyah Ramadhan, Lecturer in Constitutional Law, Faculty of Law, Universitas Pendidikan Nasional, Indonesia
What should a court do when, almost two years after an inauguration, a serious question arises as to whether an official met the requirements for holding office from the outset? The Indonesian Constitutional Court (Mahkamah Konstitusi, MK) confronted this question on 6 October 2026 in Decision No. 01/PHPU.PRES-XXIV/2026, in which it stated that it found no convincing evidence that Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka held a foreign diploma or certificate that could be recognized as equivalent to graduation from senior secondary school, as required by Article 169(r) of Law No. 7 of 2017 on General Elections. In its final ruling, the MK declared the petition “inadmissible” (niet-ontvankelijk verklaard) because the petitioners were not a pair of candidates, and then referred the matter to “the institution with the authority” under the Indonesian Constitution (the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, UUD NRI 1945) without identifying which institution it meant.
This case illustrates the dilemma of how a court should respond to a defect in the eligibility of an elected official that is contested only after the election and the inauguration have taken place. The experiences in the United States, Pakistan, and Nigeria show a range of outcomes: a court may dismiss the case because of a procedural obstacle, examine the substance and provide a legal answer, or determine a remedy together with the institution responsible for implementing it.
The decision of the Indonesian MK exhibits what I call ‘findings without remedy’: a situation in which a court examines the evidence and uncovers a substantive problem but neither provides a remedy nor explains the constitutional route through which its findings are to be followed up. Having examined the decision, my view is further that MK should not have directly disqualified a sitting vice president, because the design of Indonesian presidentialism includes its own strict mechanism for the removal of executive officials through an impeachment process. The problem, however, lies in the failure to explain how the judicial findings are to be acted upon. The MK had the opportunity to provide that clarity but, regrettably, did not do so.
EXECUTIVE DISQUALIFICATION
The controversy over Gibran’s candidacy began in 2023, when Constitutional Court Decision No. 90/PUU-XXI/2023 created an exception to the minimum age limit of 40 years for presidential and vice-presidential candidates who have held or are holding an office obtained through elections. That decision enabled Gibran, who was then 36 years old and serving as Mayor of Surakarta, to run alongside Prabowo Subianto. An ethics controversy arose because the then-Chief Justice of the MK, Anwar Usman, who also sat as a judge on the case, was Gibran’s uncle. The MK Honorary Council (Majelis Kehormatan MK) subsequently found that Anwar had committed a serious ethics violation and removed him from the chairmanship, but the decision on the age limit remained in force. Prabowo and Gibran went on to win the election and were inaugurated on 20 October 2024 as President and Vice President respectively.
Gibran’s educational qualifications emerged as an issue only in 2026, after a petitioner obtained an educational equivalency letter through a public information dispute. On 10 September 2026, twelve petitioners, including former Deputy Minister of Law and Human Rights Denny Indrayana, filed a petition concerning a dispute over election results, long after the three-day deadline had expired. They asked the MK to declare Gibran’s candidacy defective from the outset, to annul his inauguration, and to order the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) to elect a new vice president from two names proposed by the President pursuant to Article 8(2) of the 1945 Constitution. The General Elections Commission (KPU) opposed the petition on the grounds that the deadline had passed, that the petitioners lacked legal standing, and that the matter constituted an election process dispute, not a dispute over election results. The KPU also stated that Gibran’s educational documents had been verified in October 2023. The MK rejected the objection concerning the deadline by invoking special circumstances and the principle of ius curia novit, and even requested information from the relevant ministry and from Indonesian education attachés in Singapore and Australia. However, the MK accepted the objection concerning legal standing because only a pair of candidates may file a dispute over the results of a presidential election. The MK found that the document submitted to support Gibran Rakabuming Raka’s educational equivalency established that he had attended a school abroad but did not establish that he had graduated from senior secondary education.
Indonesia adds its experience to comparative references regarding executive disqualification. In the American case Kerchner v. Obama (2010), a challenge concerning Barack Obama’s status as a natural born citizen was dismissed by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit because the plaintiffs showed no concrete injury, so the court did not examine the merits. By contrast, in Ankeny v. Governor of Indiana (2009), the Indiana Court of Appeals examined the substance and held that a person born in the territory of the United States is a natural born citizen regardless of the citizenship of his or her parents. The difference between the two shows a consistency between process and outcome: a court that dismisses a case makes no substantive findings, whereas a court that examines it provides a legal answer. A closer comparator is Trump v. Anderson (2024), in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that states have no authority to enforce the disqualification clause of the Fourteenth Amendment against presidential candidates and identified Congress as the institution with that authority.
Pakistan took a firmer approach in Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi v. Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (2017), commonly known as the Panama Papers case, in which the Supreme Court disqualified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from membership in Parliament for failing to disclose his assets, finding that he did not meet the constitutional requirement of being “sadiq and ameen” (truthful and trustworthy) under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of Pakistan. Nigeria illustrates the importance of procedural limits in eligibility disputes. InAtiku Abubakar v. INEC (2019), in which opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar challenged President Muhammadu Buhari’s qualification, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution requires education up to secondary-school level, not possession of the certificate itself. In 2023, it rejected Atiku’s attempt to introduce evidence from Chicago State University concerning the diploma of Bola Tinubu, the declared winner of the 2023 presidential election in which Atiku was runner-up, because the forgery allegation had not been raised at first instance and constitutional deadlines limited the election court’s jurisdiction. These comparisons reveal three judicial approaches: dismissal without findings, a decision on the merits, or a remedy with a named implementer. Indonesia’s MK adopted a different path, making substantive findings without clarifying how they should be resolved. This constitutes findings without remedy, rather than an ordinary procedural defeat. Although the MK invoked substantive justice to revisit a matter and investigate the truth, it ultimately dismissed the petition for lack of standing, leaving its substantive findings without a clear constitutional pathway for follow-up.
PRESIDENTIALISM AND THE BALANCE OF POWER
The MK’s reluctance to disqualify Gibran can be understood in light of the design of Indonesian presidentialism, which is fairly well institutionalized and strictly regulated in the Indonesian Constitution. Linz (1990) explains that fixed terms of office make presidential systems relatively rigid and cumbersome, because they provide no mechanism for a vote of no confidence as is possible in parliamentary systems. The Indonesian Constitution restricts the removal of the president and vice president through Articles 7A and 7B. The House of Representatives (DPR) initiates the process: by a two-thirds majority, it adopts an opinion that the official has committed a violation listed in Article 7A or no longer meets the requirements, and asks the MK to examine it. If the MK finds the opinion proven, the DPR forwards the proposal to the MPR, which takes the final decision. Using an election results dispute to directly remove a sitting vice president would therefore raise serious problems of authority.
At this juncture, it is important to distinguish clearly between three issues: pre-election disqualification, election disputes subject to strict filing deadlines, and the removal of an inaugurated official through a constitutional procedure. Denny Indrayana et al. sought to use an election dispute to secure a remedy beyond its direct scope, advancing a ‘disqualification regime’ distinct from impeachment. The MK’s rejection can therefore be understood as preserving the limits of its authority and the rigidity of Indonesian presidentialism. Yet, the Court’s finding that Gibran’s educational evidence was unconvincing raises a further question under Article 7A of the Constitution, which permits removal when the president or vice president is “proven to no longer meet the requirements”. Could this provision also cover requirements that were never fulfilled in the first place? If so, the DPR could initiate impeachment proceedings, leading to MK’s examination and the MPR’s decision. However, the MK neither clarified the relevance of Article 7A to its findings nor identified the institution responsible for follow-up, leaving the constitutional pathway unresolved.
Dixon and Issacharoff (2016) call the strategy of courts that postpone resolution in order to avoid a direct confrontation with political power judicial deferral. This strategy can be justified where the court explains the reasons for the delay, the institution responsible, and the legal framework to be used. Without these, deferral merely relocates the problem. Unlike Trump v. Anderson, which expressly designated Congress as the responsible institution to take remedial action, the MK referred only to “the institution with the authority”. This vagueness puts judicial self-restraint at risk of turning into disregard for the consequences of the court’s own findings.
Gibran formally remains Vice President, but the MK decision has undermined his legitimacy and raised questions about his eligibility to run in the 2029 presidential election. Article 169(r) of the Election Law still requires that candidates have completed “senior secondary education”, and the KPU cannot simply rely on its 2023 verification after the MK found the equivalency evidence unconvincing.
I read this MK decision as an event with the potential to strain the political relationship between Jokowi and Prabowo. When Gibran remains vice president, but his legitimacy is called into question and his prospects of candidacy in 2029 are overshadowed by uncertainty, Prabowo potentially gains greater bargaining space vis-à-vis Jokowi without having to bear the political cost of impeachment. Drawing on Mietzner’s (2025) framework of elite collusion that both enables and limits the expansion of executive power, this shift in the balance can be tested through concrete developments: Will the parties supporting Prabowo push for the use of the right of inquiry (hak angket)? And will they remain willing to nominate Gibran in the 2029 General Election?
An important lesson from Indonesia is that courts need not always disqualify executive officials. Pakistan shows that disqualification is easier to carry out in a parliamentary system, while Nigeria reminds us of the importance of procedural limits. Indonesia’s problem lies in the gap between the resolution of election disputes, which is limited in time and must have an end point, and impeachment, which is heavily influenced by political configurations. When the MK enters that gap, it need not take over the authority of other institutions but must explain where its findings can be followed up. The Indonesian MK took a middle path which, in my view, is the ‘most dangerous’ one, because its findings are serious enough to shake the legitimacy of a vice president without any clarity as to who is responsible for resolving them. The case was meant to move a political conflict into a legal process, yet the MK returned it to an uncertain political arena, leaving political elites free to resolve it through political calculation and costing the Indonesian Constitution its essence of disciplining power with certainty.
Suggested citation: Febriansyah Ramadhan, Findings Without Remedy: The Indonesian Constitutional Court and the Lawsuit to Disqualify the Vice President, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, Oct. 29, 2026, at: http://www.iconnectblog.com/findings-without-remedy-the-indonesian-constitutional-court-and-the-lawsuit-to-disqualify-the-vice-president/
