CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW AND DEMOCRACY IN INDONESIA

One of the main state organs is formed based on the result of four amendments to the Constitution of 1945 to carry out the checks and balances mechanism is the Indonesian Constitutional Court. The Court has an equal position to the Supreme Court with a different jurisdiction. The four amendments had ultimately dealt with a large range of issues and changed almost the whole original 1945 Constitution, except the preamble of the Constitution, therefore, the amendments were effectively a total revision of the 1945 Constitution. The reasons to reform of the Constitution which affirms the principle of 'rule of law', 'sovereignty of the peoples' and the protection of human rights were based on a fact of histories during the Old Order regime and the New Order authoritarian regime, and provisions in the Constitution, in relation to the spirit of the organizers of the State, are considered not sufficient to establish in the Constitution. To apply the principle of rule of law and the mechanism of checks and balances, then the Constitutional Court is authorized to carry out the Constitutional review.