Gibran Alone in the Storm of Justice

FORMALISM, much like substantialism, has always captivated legal thinkers. Once revered, it can later be scorned—such is the existential fate of both formalism and substantialism.

This phenomenon of mutual negation is stimulated by the reality that both offer equal advantages and vulnerabilities. They rise and fall in tandem with reason, their true roots.

Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the Vice President and son of former President Joko Widodo, currently finds himself alone in the storm of justice.

His diploma from a senior high school has been challenged by several individuals in the Constitutional Court.

As the legal process unfolds, the law quickly divides into two equally logical spectra: formalist justice and substantialist justice.

Consequences of Reason

Justice can never be judged by time. It does not float away with time. Always, it is destined to evade becoming a long-lost, beautiful story.

Justice remains an eternal memory. This is because justice has an ontological essence that remains alive and fresh through the ages, regardless of how it is conceptualized.

It is reason that brings it to life, which in turn fosters a longing for an organized existence, through which humanity dazzles in its existence.

At this point, treating the state as a political body appears synonymous with reducing the very essence of reason. The state, in this context, is better viewed and accepted as a system of justice, a conscious reflection of reason meant to be externalized.

In its ontological nature as a reflection of reason, this existential order always presents resistance to actions from any political body named the state, which betrays justice.

Justice is the cause of the unavoidable ontology of equality. Due to its ontological nature rooted in reason, equality does not grant any justification for anyone to be given rights in a way that disregards reason.

Justice is never silent. It arrives like a storm, and that is what is currently striking Gibran, the Vice President.

Not only is the fact that brought Gibran to his role as Vice President being questioned, but it is also seen as abandoning justice.

Kelsen, the chief architect of the Austrian Constitutional Court, whose ideas have been borrowed by Indonesia, may well assert that the norms of the constitution are supreme, serving as an integrative function. However, the status of supreme does not exist merely because of its placement within the constitution but rather because it reflects reason.

At this point, reason must be accepted within the epistemological spectrum as a justification that plays a role in guiding that is supreme.

Thus, law becomes necessary, unavoidable—not because of the might of the law itself, but only because it lends life meaning.

That is why the need for law is not spurred by the greatness of the law, but for the purpose of externalizing reason.

Practically, law is needed to provide a framework for reason to operate, in the form of creating order, as something necessary. This is a substantial expression that in its essence gives rise to a need for formalism.

Substantialism and formalism, in turn, find their place precisely in the need for the externalization of reason. Up to that point, once again, formalism and substantialism coexist within the same value framework.

It is a mistake to imagine that the necessity of law validates the law itself. The validity of law is not determined by the law per se.

Rather, from an ontological perspective, the validity of law is determined by the highest value that flows through the law.

And the legality of law is not dictated by the substance of the law but is determined by how coherently its makers can infuse that supreme value into norms.

This is why the evolution of law is not determined by its deficiencies but by contingencies that continue to arise with various categorical imperatives.

Unfortunately, contingencies do not always originate from the natural reasoning of every individual. More regrettably, contingencies often come too close to fiction, whose meaning only signifies emptiness, the absence assumed to be something that certainly exists.

Interestingly, Gibran's diploma from a high school equivalent was declared valid by the General Election Commission (KPU) without thorough and substantial verification. That is the crux of the issue.

This minor flaw has resulted in a concrete legal state that deems Gibran a legitimate candidate for vice president. This is a problem too absurd to be simplified into an administrative technicality.

Sadly, in this epistemological spectrum, we must grapple with procedural questions; is it appropriate to submit this matter to the Constitutional Court? Especially given that so much time has passed.

Like it or not, in legal science, procedures— the twin of formalism—are required not to complicate or, worse, extinguish justice, but rather as a means to enliven justice.

In its symbolic nature, procedure is necessary to promote not harmony, but justice.

If Gibran's diploma is equivalent to high school, which was deemed complete and valid at the time of registration, but is actually nonexistent, and any corrections framed within electoral law are not accepted because the presidential election has long passed, then the issue is the same; is it logical to penalize procedure as an obstruction or as a source of injustice?

In this context of epistemology and legal science, reason assigns equal value to both; substantialism and formalism. Hence this is the case.

The absence or emptiness of law, within the epistemological spectrum, appears to justify the existence of law. Once law exists, it loses relevance for further needs.

Has there been a legal emptiness in this case, necessitating the Court to create new regulations merely to allow Gibran's diploma to be scrutinized as a presidential election dispute? This is intriguing.

Must Be Clever

Interestingly, Gibran stands alone in this storm of justice. He, for some reason, allows the Court to proceed without him.

If his solitude in this catastrophic storm is guided by his natural instinct that what he is accused of has never concerned President Prabowo on a personal level, then that's commendable.

However, if his solitude in this storm reflects his legal awareness that he is part of President Prabowo within the electoral law framework, then Gibran is one hundred percent mistaken.

The unity of presidential and vice-presidential candidates in electoral law objectively ends as soon as the presidential election dispute is determined by the Court. Practically since the Court resolves the presidential election dispute, both the President and the Vice President become autonomous legal subjects, distinct from one another.

Legally, both the President and Vice President are autonomously responsible, separated from each other for their personal actions.

Logically, President Prabowo cannot be included alongside Gibran, the Vice President, to bear responsibility for Gibran's personal actions.

In legal terms, the personal actions of both are attached to their respective personas.

Their personas delineate responsibility. Persona serves as the dividing line or breaking point of the dual responsibility.

Separating the responsibility between the President and the Vice President for their personal actions reflects a demand of reason.

This reason is subjective, the basis of persona emergence. Justice inherently aligns with reason, so one cannot be made responsible for another's actions.

The Court, staffed by esteemed judges, knows that Gibran is an independent persona, just like President Prabowo.

The Court understands that, epistemologically, each persona bears responsibility for their own actions.

The Court knows better than anyone that no existing law in the repository of knowledge allows it to construct reasoning that would enable President Prabowo to be included in the issue of Gibran's diploma.

No legal science, even legal philosophy, provides any premise, let alone for the entirety, even small elements, to justify shared responsibility without being derived from persona.

The universal premise of legal science is clear; the capacity for thought and personal actions is the basis for the burden of responsibility. Nothing outside of that, regardless of any forced rationale.

Responsibility, in legal science, is a basic consequence. Legal science necessitates, even posits the mental capacity— the awareness of the persona to map out the consequences of their actions.

A madman, in legal science, is not conceived as a persona, for he lacks the mental capacity to evaluate the morality of his actions.

This is the fundamental premise behind the legal reasoning that a madman is not burdened with responsibility. Plato, in his best-selling book Republic, asserts, "a madman cannot be a friend of God."

The perspectives provided by legal science regarding responsibility are as intriguing as Gibran allowing this storm to swirl without his presence in the Court.

Astonishingly, Gibran does not ask President Prabowo to charge the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, the Minister of Law, and the Attorney General to represent him in the Court.

From the positive state perspective, whether liked or not, Gibran is part of the government. As the Vice President, Gibran has legitimate grounds to involve government elements in this matter.

Indeed, the actions he is accused of are personal in nature, but due to the status and their consequences from a perspective concerning the government’s appearance, Gibran is entitled, not obliged, to request government participation not within the framework of electoral law but as part of governance.

However, if Gibran insists on adhering to procedures—formality—that is not wrong, as procedures are also called upon by law to promote justice.

It is not wrong for Gibran to think that in this case, there is no legal emptiness. It is correct if Gibran believes the Court does not need to create new rules solely to examine this creative and artificial dispute.

It is not erroneous if Gibran thinks the applicable law is the law that exists here, now, and not somewhere else.

Based on that, Gibran can logically argue that this dispute should not be examined in the Court. He is justified in thinking this issue must be processed according to the existing procedural scheme stipulated in Article 7B of the 1945 Constitution.

The argument that the vice-presidential candidate requirements are not met by Gibran since registration is interesting. A new discovery that, according to the applicants, questions the validity of registration, thus rendering the "legitimacy" invalid, is also captivating.

It is not erroneous if Gibran considers the legal qualification against this new finding as an object— a legal matter—that is aimed at or encompassed by the norm of being "proven to no longer meet the requirements" in Article 7A of the 1945 Constitution. Consequently, that new finding cannot be examined by the Court.

In legal science, an action considered lawful at one time can become unlawful at another time due to objective reasons.

If a finding that emerges much later indicates something different, resulting in the annulment of the previous decision, then this new matter logically stands as an object targeted by the norm of "proven to no longer meet the requirements" in Article 7A of the 1945 Constitution. The law dictates that this new finding should be examined by the House of Representatives, not by the Court.

Gibran may not be an exceptional reader, especially compared to President Prabowo. However, within those considerable limitations, Gibran must be clever, and it would benefit him to spend some time dealing with Thomas Reid, an 18th-century Scottish philosopher who wrote about power. For Reid, power has a genealogy, an orbit.

Power, in his view, is too abstract a concept to define. The concrete form of power only manifests once it is in its orbit and utilized practically.

It would be good if Gibran also read the novel "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding, a philosophy instructor in Salisbury, England, who served as an English soldier during World War II.

This novel illuminates facets of praxis regarding power akin to Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian of the 5th century BC.

Gibran, alone in the midst of this storm, is not reconsidering his fate, letting his days be penned by the applicants and the Court, growing darker with each moment.

It would be remarkable if Gibran, in his solitude, sharpened his small intellect, recognizing the history of power and justice. It would be admirable if Gibran, with his modest intelligence, realized that the energy of distributive justice is always explosive.

At this point, Gibran must further stimulate his small intelligence to better understand the Court's brief yet epic history.

The Court always manages to enter and operate within the unpredictable. It is to be hoped that tonight's interim decision truly concludes this creative and artificial dispute.

If the nature of that interim decision differs, then Gibran's small intelligence must note the possibility that the Court's final ruling declares that "the KPU has been proven not to have examined Gibran's educational requirements documents as per the law or that his Certificate of Equivalent High School education is invalid."

Legal considerations are not law itself. That is true. The issue is that legal science justifies the facts declared within legal considerations as having legal value as factual evidence.

And prayers to Him, the true owner of power, must be intensified to tame the next storm of justice and to bring back political allies, who for some reason have now distanced themselves and should not continue to drift apart.

Regrettably, justice always provides reasons to end political friendships, leaving solitude sinking into an unwelcome conclusion.

Such is justice; it can always redirect ideas, as new light of reason emerges. In justice, betrayal does not exist. Justice is that graceful.