Open Legal Policy Shifts and Electoral Reform: Indonesia’s Parliamentary Threshold Decision

Abstract

Although the Constitutional Court decision is final and binding, the Court has revised its constitutional interpretation in several judicial reviews of the Election Law, including Decision 116/PUU-XXI/2023 on the parliamentary threshold. In previous rulings, the Court treated the 4% threshold as an open legal policy, but in the latest, the 4% threshold applies only to the 2024 Election and is conditionally constitutional for future elections. This study examines why the Court reached this ruling and its implications for electoral reform. Drawing on electoral reform theory, doctrinal and normative analysis of Court decisions (2007-2023) and empirical indicators (the Pedersen Index, the Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties, and party vote data (2004–2024)), the study finds that judicial restraint creates uncertainty in electoral reform. The threshold setting likely reflects the interplay between the Court’s rationality of representation and political party bargaining interests. This study contributes to understanding conditional constitutionality as a strategic constitutional mechanism and to interbranch dynamics that shape electoral reform.