JAKARTA – The Constitutional Court (MK) has officially dismissed a high-profile lawsuit challenging the educational qualifications of Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka, effectively ending a legal battle that has loomed over the 2024 election cycle.
In a decisive ruling delivered on Tuesday (6/10/2026), the Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Suhartoyo, declared the petition filed by former Deputy Minister of Law and Human Rights, Denny Indrayana, and 11 other co-applicants as Niet Ontvankelijke Verklaard (inadmissible).
The court’s verdict rested on a procedural bedrock: the applicants lacked the required legal standing to bring the case before the bench. Constitutional Judge Liliek clarified that under the existing Constitutional Court Regulation Number 2/2024, the right to file a dispute regarding the presidential election results is reserved exclusively for the candidate pairs who participated in the contest. Because the applicants—a group composed of civil society organizations and private individuals—did not meet this criteria, the court found itself unable to deliberate on the merits of their claims.
“Therefore, the applicants do not have legal standing to submit this matter,” Justice Liliek stated during the session. As a consequence of this procedural roadblock, the justices declined to examine the substance of the arguments, dismissing the core of the petition as irrelevant.
The lawsuit, registered under case number 01/PHPU.PRES-XXIV/2026, sought a sweeping judicial intervention. Denny Indrayana and his fellow petitioners had leveled serious accusations, arguing that Gibran’s candidacy was legally flawed from its inception due to a failure to meet the imperative educational requirements stipulated in Article 16, letter r of Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections.
The applicants had presented an aggressive list of eight demands. These included a request for the total disqualification of Gibran as a candidate, the subsequent annulment of several General Election Commission (KPU) decisions that solidified his path to the vice presidency, and even the cancellation of his inauguration by the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR). The petitioners had further urged the court to mandate that the MPR convene a special session to elect a new Vice President to fill the resulting vacancy.
By ruling the case inadmissible, the Constitutional Court has effectively shielded the current executive administration from the legal challenge, reinforcing the strict procedural boundaries that govern election-related disputes in Indonesia. While the ruling brings a formal conclusion to the controversy regarding the Vice President’s eligibility, the decision to sidestep the substantive arguments regarding educational standards is likely to remain a subject of intense debate within legal and political circles.
With this ruling, the state of the 2024 election results remains unchanged, and the judicial focus on the legitimacy of the Vice President’s qualifications has been officially closed by the nation’s highest court.
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