Textualism, Fallacies, and Implied Proportionality: Constitutional Review concerning Right to be Elected in Arief's Court

Analyzing and testing legal reasonings in the decisions of the Constitutional Court of theRepublic of Indonesia (MK-RI) have significant methodological importance. This articleis not focused on the content of the “amar” part as statements located at the end, but onhow legal reasonings are formulated to rationalize the decisions. Because MK-RI is the final interpreter of the highest law (the Constitution), the substance in the legal reasoning section binds, formally, all citizens on how to apply the interpretation to constitutional issues. We, thus, need to understand the thought process of the judges before coming up with the amar for we as rational and educated humans cannot simply accept or recognize what is stated by MK-RI; what the court has stated becomes a methodological guideline for us to actualize the articles of the constitution. This analysis and test is narrowed down periodically during the Arief’s Court period, which spans from 2015 to 2018. Its substance is further specified in landmark decisions related to the judicial review concerning the right to be elected. We found a tendency toward textualism, although the judges also attempted to establish strong legal reasonings by applying the proportionality test in a few cases, albeit implicitly and not comprehensively.