REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Laskar Dewa Ruci Legal Aid Institute has filed a proposal for judicial review of the new law on regional elections with the Constitutional Court.

Laskar Dewa Ruci said the law has robbed the people of their political rights to be given to regional legislative assemblies (DPRD).

Under the new law provincial governors and heads of lower government administrations would be elected by the regional legislative assemblies instead of directly by the people.

"There are differences in the legal treatment between common members of the community and people who are members of DPRD," Laskar Dewa Ruci lawyer Ridwan Darmawan said after filing the judicial review proposal here on Wednesday.

Ridwan said the proposal was submitted by 12 members of Laskar Dewa Ruci.

Ridwan said they no longer believe in the Perppu (government regulation in lieu of law) issued by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) as it is only a trick to cheat the people.

"SBY's Perppu is nonsense, not more than an image projection, for narrow and short term political goals of SBY and his Democratic Party," he said.

He said he saw little chance of the Perppu to be accepted by the parliament, which is controlled by a coalition of political opponents of the president elect Joko Widodo.

SBY has issued the Perppu to cancel the new law on regional election after he was widely criticized by the people, who blamed him for law passed by the parliament.

Ironically the regional election law was officially proposed by the government through the minister of home affairs and supported by the ruling Democratic Party of which SBY is the general chairman.

Ridwan, a lawyer from Sirra Prayuna Law office, said Dewa Ruci Legal aid institute asks the Constitutional Court to cancel the law on regional election.

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