Constitutional Court Decision 40/PUU-XXIV/2026 is a 2026 ruling of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia on whether the free nutritious-meals programme may be funded from, and counted towards, the education budget that Pasal 31(4) of the 1945 Constitution requires to be at least twenty per cent of the state budget.^[1] The petition, brought by an education foundation and five individual citizens, challenged Pasal 22(3) of Undang-Undang 17/2025 on the 2026 State Budget and its elucidation, which counts the meals programme at education-related institutions as part of the operational funding of education.^[2][3] It is one of the constitutional review cases decided on 30 July 2026, and bears on education law and public finance in Indonesia.^[4]

The Court upheld Pasal 22(3) itself but held that the elucidation had widened the meaning of the operational funding of education, created a new norm and undermined the constitutional priority for education spending. Because annulling it would have left the 2026 education budget below the constitutional minimum, the Court declared the elucidation conditionally binding: valid only for the 2026 budget, with the meals programme to be separated from the education budget by the 2028 budget, or within two years of the ruling, at the latest.^[5][6][4:1]

The decision was granted in part, the rest of the petition being rejected, and the Court ordered its publication in the Berita Negara.^[4:2] No separate opinion is recorded in the decision.

¶ Background

Pasal 22 of the 2026 State Budget Law sets the education budget at about Rp769.1 trillion and states it as 20.0 per cent of total state expenditure of about Rp3,842.7 trillion. Its ayat (3) provides that the education budget includes funding for the operational conduct of education (pendanaan operasional penyelenggaraan pendidikan), and the elucidation of that ayat states that such funding includes the nutritious-meals programme at institutions connected with the provision of general or religious education.^[7][2:1][8] The Court noted that the elucidation of Pasal 22(3) of the 2025 State Budget Law, Undang-Undang 62/2024, had used the same words and had served since 2025 as the basis for funding the programme from the education budget.^[8:1]

The programme, known as Makan Bergizi Gratis (MBG), is governed by Peraturan Presiden 115/2025 and listed as a national priority programme in Peraturan Presiden 12/2025 on the 2025–2029 medium-term development plan.^[8:2] According to facts established at the hearings, the 2026 education budget was Rp769.1 trillion, of which Rp223.6 trillion was allocated to meals for school and madrasah students; meals for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and young children were funded from the health budget.^[9]

¶ Petition

The petition was registered on 26 January 2026 and revised on 18 February 2026.^[10] The petitioners were a foundation working in education for street children, three university students, an honorary teacher at a private school and a taxpayer.^[2:2] They argued that including the meals programme in the operational funding of education mixed two separate legal regimes, blurred the boundary of education as defined in the National Education System Law, bypassed the classification of education costs in Peraturan Pemerintah 48/2008 on education funding, and let the twenty per cent mandate be met by spending outside the education system. They also argued that the phrase "operational conduct of education" was open-ended, and that the elucidation introduced a norm absent from the body of the provision.^[11]

Their relief asked the Court to read Pasal 22(3) as excluding the meals programme, and to strike down the elucidation.^[12] The Court found that all six petitioners had standing.^[2:3]

¶ Proceedings

The Court heard the House of Representatives (DPR) and the President on 14 April 2026, and received statements from three related parties: an education research foundation, a group of four individuals, and a society of lecturers in constitutional and administrative law. Experts and witnesses were heard for the petitioners, the DPR and the President between May and July 2026, several student and civil society organisations filed amicus curiae briefs, and the parties filed conclusions on 9 July 2026.^[13]

¶ Ruling

¶ The education budget mandate

The Court traced Pasal 31(4) to the 2002 amendment of the Constitution, adopted after the education budget had stood at about 3.5 per cent in 2000–2001, and read it as combining a direction to prioritise education with a measurable minimum of twenty per cent that may not be reduced.^[14] It reviewed its earlier decisions on the mandate: 011/PUU-III/2005, annulling an elucidation that let education funding be met in stages; 012/PUU-III/2005, 026/PUU-III/2005 and 13/PUU-VI/2008 on state budgets that fell short of the minimum; 24/PUU-V/2007, which counted educators' salaries within the education budget; and 3/PUU-XXII/2024 on free basic education.^[14:1]

The Court stated that the petition did not question the meals programme itself, which it described as constitutional in purpose, grounded in the rights to health in Pasal 28H(1) and 34(3) of the Constitution and the right to food in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and deserving of an adequate budget of its own.^[8:3]

¶ Operational funding of education

The Court held that "operational conduct of education" in Pasal 22(3) refers to the main components directly connected with providing education, without which education cannot run optimally and continuously, and on that reading found no constitutional defect in the ayat itself.^[9:1] In setting out what such funding covers, the Court referred, while stating that it was not assessing the regulation's legality, to the classification of education costs in Peraturan Pemerintah 48/2008 on education funding, as amended by Peraturan Pemerintah 18/2022, under which operating costs consist largely of the salaries and allowances of education personnel.^[9:2] The elucidation, by contrast, extended the meaning of the ayat. The Court found that the education budget reached twenty per cent in 2026 only once the meals allocation was counted, so that the arrangement served indirectly as a means of meeting the minimum, one the Court said could hinder efforts to meet needs such as school facilities and teachers' pay.^[9:3]

It further held that an elucidation may only explain the body of a provision, and that under Lampiran II of Undang-Undang 12/2011 on law-making, as amended by Undang-Undang 13/2022, an elucidation may not widen, add to or change a norm. The elucidation of Pasal 22(3) had created a new norm, causing legal uncertainty contrary to Pasal 28D(1) and a failure to meet the priority required by Pasal 31(4) of the Constitution.^[5:1]

¶ Remedy

The Court reasoned that removing the meals allocation from the 2026 education budget would itself leave that budget below twenty per cent and so unconstitutional, while a mid-year separation would force the government to find new funding in both sectors at once. It therefore kept the 2026 budget in force and declared the elucidation conditionally constitutional, applying only to the 2026 budget. Because a state budget law operates for one year only, the Court directed that from later budgets the meals programme, under whatever name, be separated from the operational funding of education, and set the 2028 budget, or two years from the ruling, as the latest date. For the 2027 budget, already in preparation, the programme could remain within education funding only if it did not reduce the twenty per cent available for the main components of education, which the Court listed as learners, educators and education personnel, facilities and infrastructure, curriculum, and evaluation and development. It added that separating the programme from the 2027 budget onwards would be preferable if the government could adjust that budget in time.^[6:1]

The operative order granted the petition in part, declared the elucidation of Pasal 22(3) not contrary to the Constitution and conditionally binding in those terms, ordered publication in the Berita Negara, and rejected the remainder. The decision was reached in deliberation on 20 July 2026 and pronounced on 30 July 2026, with Suhartoyo presiding.^[4:3]

¶ Related petitions

On the same day the Court decided two other petitions directed at the same elucidation. Decision 55/PUU-XXIV/2026 declared one petitioner's petition inadmissible, declared the other's inadmissible as to the elucidation, and rejected the rest; decision 52/PUU-XXIV/2026, which also challenged Pasal 49(1) of the National Education System Law and its elucidation, rejected a request for provisional relief, declared the petition inadmissible as to those provisions and rejected the rest.^[15][16] CRPG's regulatory tracker published an account of decision 40/PUU-XXIV/2026 on 21 September 2026.^[17]

¶ See also

• Constitutional Court Decision 241/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Health sector regulation in Indonesia

¶ External links

• Decision (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• Case record (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• CRPG: Education Budget and the Nutritious Meals Programme: MK 40/PUU-XXIV/2026 (crpg.id, 21 September 2026)

¶ References