Constitutional Court Decision 256/PUU-XXIV/2026 is a 2026 ruling of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia on a petition for material review of the rules, inserted into the Police Law by Undang-Undang 5/2026, under which serving members of the national police may hold posts outside the police organisation.^[1] The petition, brought by an individual citizen, challenged the elucidation of Pasal 28A(2) and the whole of Pasal 28A(3) and (4).^[2] It is one of the constitutional review cases decided by the Court on 30 July 2026.^[3]

The Court did not reach the merits. It held that the petition did not meet the formal requirements for filing, because the evidence submitted in support of it bore no duty stamp (meterai), and declared it inadmissible.^[4][3:1] The provisions under review were left as enacted.

¶ Provisions under review

Undang-Undang 5/2026, the third amendment of Undang-Undang 2/2002 on the Indonesian National Police, inserted a new Pasal 28A on the staffing of civil posts by police members, a question of public administration in Indonesia. Its ayat (1) allows a police member to fill a post outside the police organisation so long as the post is connected with police functions, and ayat (2) defines such posts as managerial or non-managerial posts in ministries or agencies whose affairs lie in three fields: the maintenance of public security and order; protection, shelter and service to the community; and law enforcement. Ayat (3) goes beyond those ministries and agencies: a police member may also fill a post outside the police wherever another ministry or agency requests the expertise the member holds. Ayat (4) adds a third route beyond the posts in ayat (2) and (3), assignment by the President, and provides that the terms of those then in office end two years after the law's promulgation.^[5]

¶ Petition

The petition, filed online on 1 July 2026 and revised on 21 July 2026, argued that the three provisions were contrary to Pasal 1(3), 27(1), 28D(1), 28D(3) and 28J(2) of the 1945 Constitution.^[6][7] Its relief asked the Court to hold the phrase antara lain ("among others") in the elucidation of Pasal 28A(2) unconstitutional so far as it opens the three fields to further ministries or agencies; to strike down Pasal 28A(3), or in the alternative to confine it to posts within the three fields; and to confine the transitional presidential assignments under Pasal 28A(4) to posts within the same fields.^[2:1] The grounds drew on the Court's earlier ruling in 114/PUU-XXIII/2025 on police officers in civil posts, and on the civil service categories of Undang-Undang 20/2023 on the state civil apparatus.^[7:1]

The petition did not challenge Pasal 28A(1), whose requirement of a connection with police functions it accepted as a constitutional limit. It located the problem in the three provisions under review, which in its account failed to give citizens an objective measure of the boundary between police posts and civil administrative posts. From paragraphs [3.12.2] and [3.12.3] of decision 114/PUU-XXIII/2025 it derived a two-step test for an elucidation: whether a phrase merely explains or reinforces the norm in the body of the statute, or instead blurs or widens it and so produces the legal uncertainty that Pasal 28D(1) of the Constitution forbids.^[8] Applying that test, the petition argued that the phrase antara lain in the elucidation of letters a, b and c of Pasal 28A(2) turned the closed list of three fields in the body of the provision into an open one that could widen without any amendment of the statute. It relied on the principle of clarity of formulation in Pasal 5 huruf f of Undang-Undang 12/2011 on the making of legislation, and on points 176 and 177 of that law's Lampiran II, which confine an elucidation to explaining the norm and bar it from containing a new one. It added that each list in the elucidation ends with the conjunction dan, which under points 90 and 91 of the same annex marks a list as cumulative and closed, so that the elucidation carried two inconsistent signals in a single sentence.^[9] Having found the petition formally defective, the Court did not rule on any of these arguments.^[4:1]

¶ Ruling

The Court found that the original petition had been filed online with four exhibits supplied only as unstamped electronic files. At the preliminary examination on 9 July 2026 it advised the petitioner to repair the petition and to stamp the evidence, and set a deadline of 22 July 2026 under Pasal 37(1) of Peraturan Mahkamah Konstitusi 7/2025.^[10] It then applied Pasal 10(4) and Pasal 12(3) of that regulation, which require a petition to be supported by evidence and, for an online filing, one copy of the evidence bearing a duty stamp, and Pasal 67(1)(a), which provides that a petition failing the formal filing requirements is declared inadmissible.^[11]

The revised petition was filed with a fifth exhibit, again only as electronic files, and the petitioner confirmed at the hearing of 22 July 2026 that the evidence was unstamped. The Court held that the petition did not satisfy the formal requirements for a statutory review petition and did not consider it further.^[4:2] The operative order declared the petition inadmissible. The decision was reached in deliberation on 23 July 2026 and pronounced on 30 July 2026, with Suhartoyo presiding; the petitioner did not attend.^[3:2]

The same stamped-evidence requirement decided decision 270/PUU-XXIV/2026 on the General Elections Law, pronounced on 12 August 2026.^[12] CRPG's regulatory tracker published an account of the petition on 25 September 2026, reporting it as concerning the placement of police officers in civil posts.^[13]

¶ See also

• Constitutional Court Decision 257/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Constitutional Court Decision 261/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Constitutional Court Decision 264/PUU-XXIV/2026

¶ External links

• Decision (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• Case record (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• CRPG: Constitutional Review of Police Placement in Civil Posts: MK 256/PUU-XXIV/2026 (crpg.id, 25 September 2026)

¶ References