Constitutional Review of the 2026 State Budget Law: MK 55/PUU-XXIV/2026

The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia decided case 55/PUU-XXIV/2026 on 30 July 2026, a material review of Undang-Undang Nomor 17 Tahun 2025 tentang Anggaran Pendapatan dan Belanja Negara Tahun Anggaran 2026 (Law 17/2025 on the State Budget for Fiscal Year 2026). The petition was brought by Reza Sudrajat, recorded in the decision as Pemohon I, alongside a second petitioner recorded as Pemohon II. The provision at the centre of Pemohon I's petition was the Elucidation of Pasal 22 ayat (3) of that law, read against the state budget provisions of the 1945 Constitution. The petitioners framed the case around how budget figures are composed and explained, rather than around the total appropriation itself.

Legal Reasoning

The considerations recorded in the decision open with the question of standing and of where a constitutional right may be located. The petition relied on the proposition that a constitutional right can arise derivatively from a constitutional provision even where that provision does not name citizens as its subject, citing the Court's own earlier reading of Pasal 1 ayat (3) of the 1945 Constitution in Decision 017/PUU-III/2005. Pasal 1 ayat (3) establishes Indonesia as a state based on law, and the argument advanced was that this clause carries consequences for how the state budget is drawn up, not merely for how disputes are adjudicated.

From that starting point the record develops two propositions about budget governance. The first concerns process: the drafting of a proposed state budget is not left to executive preference alone, because the constitutional amendments strengthened the legislature's role in deliberating and, where it chooses, refusing a draft budget. The second concerns substance: certain allocations are treated as fixed before discretionary choices begin. Here the petition turned to Pasal 31 ayat (4) of the 1945 Constitution, which obliges the state to prioritise education spending at a minimum of twenty per cent of the state budget and of regional budgets, in order to meet the requirements of national education.

The record situates that twenty per cent floor within the wider practice of mandatory spending, which in Indonesian budget formulation also covers health, transfers to regions, and village funds. The material cited addresses a recurring difficulty with a numerical constitutional floor: whether the obligation is satisfied by arithmetic that reaches the stated percentage, or whether it reaches further into what is counted toward the figure in the first place. The petition drew on academic commentary arguing that the priority principle should be read for its purpose and not only as a technical calculation, on the view that a percentage assembled through rationalised accounting can meet the number while leaving the provision's object unmet. The Court's earlier consideration on legal certainty, in Decision 067/PUU-II/2004, was invoked for the proposition that inconsistency in the legal framework sits uneasily with the principles of a state based on law.

The reasoning also records the doctrinal setting in which these arguments were placed, including the correspondence between the constitutional concept of a state based on law and the rule of law tradition, and the position that economic policy in Indonesia operates within legal limits rather than setting them. These references frame the petitioners' contention that the explanation attached to a budget provision can carry legal weight, and that an elucidation which alters how a figure is understood becomes a matter of constitutional concern.

The Ruling

The Court's operative decision has three parts. It declared the petition of Pemohon II inadmissible. It declared the petition of Pemohon I inadmissible so far as it concerned the review of the Elucidation of Pasal 22 ayat (3) of Law 17/2025 on the State Budget for Fiscal Year 2026, published at State Gazette of 2025 Number 179 and Supplement to the State Gazette Number 7144. For the balance of Pemohon I's petition, the Court stated: "Menolak permohonan Pemohon I untuk selain dan selebihnya" — rejecting the remainder of Pemohon I's petition.

The result is that Law 17/2025 stands unchanged by this decision. The two admissibility findings dispose of the second petitioner's case in full and of the elucidation challenge in particular, while the rejection of the remainder addresses the balance of the petition on its merits. No dissenting opinion was recorded in the decision.

Read the full decision in the official record.

Methodology: This memo summarises the official decision text and is not legal advice; report corrections to contact@crpg.info.

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