Constitutional Court Decision 260/PUU-XXIV/2026 is a 2026 ruling of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia on a petition for material review of Pasal 4 huruf e of Undang-Undang 11/2008 on electronic information and transactions (the ITE Law), the provision stating that the use of information technology aims to provide a sense of security, justice and legal certainty to its users and operators.^[1][2] The petition, brought by an individual citizen, a civil servant, sought a reading of the provision that would oblige social media platform operators to ensure that every user acts under a verified real identity.^[3] It is one of the constitutional review cases decided by the Court on 30 July 2026.^[4]

The Court held that it had jurisdiction but did not reach the merits. It found that the reasoning of the petition and the relief it requested did not correspond, and that the relief was framed in a form not contemplated by the Constitutional Court Law, and on those grounds declared the petition unclear (kabur, or obscuur) and inadmissible.^[3:1][4:1] The provision was not reviewed on its substance.

¶ Background and petition

Pasal 4 of the ITE Law, one of the statutes of data governance in Indonesia, lists the aims for which information technology and electronic transactions are to be used; its huruf e names the provision of a sense of security, justice and legal certainty for users and operators of information technology.^[2:1] The petition was registered on 6 July 2026 and revised in a petition received by the Court on 23 July 2026.^[5] Its grounds argued that the phrase on providing a sense of security was abstract and open to several readings, and connected it with the prevalence of anonymous accounts on social media.^[6]

The relief sought asked the Court to declare Pasal 4 huruf e contrary to the Constitution unless read as obliging platform operators to ensure that every user employs a lawful real identity as a condition of activity on social media, in order to protect the right to a sense of security "as guaranteed in" Pasal 28D(1) in conjunction with Pasal 28G(1) of the 1945 Constitution.^[3:2]

¶ Procedure

The Court heard the petition at a preliminary examination on 14 July 2026, where, under Pasal 39 of the Constitutional Court Law and Pasal 36(3) of Peraturan Mahkamah Konstitusi 7/2025 on procedure in statutory review cases, it advised the petitioner to repair the structure and substance of the petition, and allowed until 27 July 2026 for a revision. The revision was received on 23 July 2026 and heard on 27 July 2026.^[7]

¶ Ruling

The Court accepted that the petition followed the required structure of jurisdiction, standing, grounds (posita) and relief (petitum), but held that formal sufficiency also turns on the clarity of each part and on the correspondence between grounds and relief, relying on Pasal 51(3)(b) of the Constitutional Court Law and Pasal 68 of Peraturan MK 7/2025, which lists mismatches between grounds and relief among the reasons a petition may be declared unclear.^[8]

It made two findings. First, the grounds attacked the phrase on a sense of security, while the relief sought a conditional reading of the whole of huruf e without returning to that phrase, leaving it unclear whether the petitioner wanted a new meaning for the phrase or a conditional ruling on the entire provision; the Court described the grounds and the relief as contradictory (contradictio in terminis). Second, the added reference to Pasal 28D(1) and 28G(1) in the requested reading was, in the Court's view, an unusual formulation of relief, not one of the forms set out in Pasal 51A(5)(b) and (c) of the Constitutional Court Law.^[3:3]

The Court concluded that the petition was unclear and did not consider it further. The operative order declared the petition inadmissible. The decision was reached by nine justices in deliberation on 27 July 2026 and pronounced in open plenary session on 30 July 2026, with Suhartoyo presiding and the petitioner present.^[4:2] The same grounds of vagueness disposed of decision 261/PUU-XXIV/2026 on the Village Law, pronounced the same day.^[9]

CRPG's regulatory tracker published an account of the decision on 26 September 2026.^[10]

¶ See also

• Criminal law and procedure in Indonesia
• Constitutional Court Decision 256/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Constitutional Court Decision 263/PUU-XXIV/2026

¶ External links

• Decision (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• Case record (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• CRPG: Constitutional Review of the ITE Law Safety Clause: MK 260/PUU-XXIV/2026 (crpg.id, 26 September 2026)

¶ References