Constitutional Court Decision 261/PUU-XXIV/2026 is a 2026 ruling of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia on a petition for material review of Pasal 31(3) of Undang-Undang 6/2014 on villages against Pasal 27(1) of the 1945 Constitution.^[1] The petition, brought by three individual citizens recorded in the decision as village officials (perangkat desa), objected to a rule in Peraturan Pemerintah 16/2026 requiring village officials who become candidates for village head to resign.^[2][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 found the petition unclear (obscuur): it did not explain how the provision conflicted with the Constitution, repeatedly named the wrong statute, mixed review of a statute with review of a government regulation, and sought relief in unusual forms. It declared the petition inadmissible without reaching the merits.^[5][4:1]

¶ Background and petition

Pasal 31 of the Village Law provides for simultaneous village head elections across each regency or city, and its ayat (3) delegates the detailed procedure for those elections to, or to rules made under, a government regulation.^[6] Peraturan Pemerintah 16/2026, which implements the Village Law, requires a village official who stands in a village head election to take leave, and by its Pasal 42(4) requires an official who has been confirmed as a candidate to resign.^[3:1]

The petition, dated 3 July 2026, was registered on 6 July 2026.^[7] It argued that the delegation in Pasal 31(3), as implemented by Pasal 42 of the regulation, discriminated against village officials who wished to stand for village head, contrary to the guarantee of equality before the law and government in Pasal 27(1) of the Constitution.^[2:1] Its relief asked the Court to declare Pasal 31(3), described as having a derivative in the regulation, unconstitutional; to order the lawmakers to bring it into line with Pasal 27(1); and to order related parties to carry out the decision.^[5:1]

¶ Procedure

At the preliminary examination on 14 July 2026 the Court, under Pasal 39 of the Constitutional Court Law and Pasal 36(3) of Peraturan Mahkamah Konstitusi 7/2025, advised the petitioners to repair their statement of the Court's jurisdiction, their standing, their grounds and their relief, and allowed fourteen days for a revision. The petitioners filed no revision and did not attend the hearing of 27 July 2026 set to examine it, although duly summoned, so the Court assessed the original petition.^[8]

¶ Ruling

Applying Pasal 30 huruf a, 31(1) and 51(3)(b) of the Constitutional Court Law and Pasal 10(3) and 36(1) of Peraturan MK 7/2025, the Court found four defects. The petition did not set out clearly how Pasal 31(3) conflicted with Pasal 27(1). It repeatedly cited the statute as Undang-Undang 6/2016 on village head elections, although that statute ratifies a defence cooperation agreement between Indonesia and China, and although Undang-Undang 6/2014 concerns villages rather than village head elections as such. Its subject line sought review of Pasal 42(3) of the government regulation on the basis of the statute, which, read with the statement of standing, mixed review of statutes by the Constitutional Court with review of regulations below statute by the Mahkamah Agung, leaving unclear whether the constitutionality of the statute or the legality of the regulation was in issue. Finally, items 2 and 3 of the relief were not in the form customary in statutory review.^[5:2]

On those grounds the Court held the petition unclear and did not consider it further. The operative order declared the petition inadmissible. The decision was reached in deliberation on 27 July 2026 and pronounced on 30 July 2026, with Suhartoyo presiding and the petitioners absent.^[4:2] The Court disposed of decision 260/PUU-XXIV/2026 on the ITE Law on the same ground the same day.^[9]

CRPG's regulatory tracker published an account of the decision on 23 September 2026. As first published, the account stated that the Court had examined a revised petition; a correction dated 27 September 2026 changed it to record that no revision was filed, that the petitioners did not attend the hearing of 27 July 2026, and that the Court assessed the original petition of 3 July 2026, as the decision states.^[10][8:1]

¶ See also

• Public administration in Indonesia
• Constitutional Court Decision 264/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Constitutional Court Decision 256/PUU-XXIV/2026

¶ External links

• Decision (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• Case record (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• CRPG: Village Law Petition Dismissed on Formal Defects: MK 261/PUU-XXIV/2026 (crpg.id, 23 September 2026)

¶ References