Legal Review
Information Request that is Not Sincere and in a Good Faith (Vexatious Request)
By: Dessy Eko Prayitno[1]
PRELIMINARY
Request for Information Dispute
The data of information disputes from the Central Information Commission (KIP) shows that from 2010 until 2017, KIP has received 2724 requests of information dispute resolution. Therefore, from 2724 requests, it was just 901 information disputes that have been resolved. Thus, KIP still has dispute areas of 1823.
There were interesting things about the information dispute areas from KIP: First, from 1823 disputes, 1209 were the requests submitted by Muhammad Hidayat or known as MHS. 1209 information disputes were submitted by MHS using several identities, such as Mata Ummat, Perkumpulan Mata Umat, Pergerakan Mata Umat, Sahabat Muslim, Sahabat Muslim Indonesia, and Perkumpulan Sahabat Muslim. Second, 1209 dispute requests were made by MHS in 2014, and all of them were considered to have no direct interest in the requested information.
Out of dispute data recorded by KIP, at the beginning of the enactment of Act No. 14 of 2008 regarding Public Information Disclosure (KIP Act), Information Commission Regulations (Perki) No. 1 of 2010 regarding Standard of Public Information Service (Perki SLIP), and Perki 2 of 2011 regarding Procedures of Public Information Dispute Resolution (Perki PPSIP), 2 MHS has shocked almost all public agencies at
the central level (ministries and civil society organizations).
At the beginning of the KIP Act and the enactment of the derivative regulations, MHS’s actions were quite helpful in the information disclosure implementation at the national level. Many public agencies started to fix it to improve their information service. This is because MHS always submitted information disputes to KIP towards the public agencies that did not give the requested information.
However, the MHS’s action gradually began considering as unsettling, such as: first, MHS had the requests on the same information in all public agencies, which were all information regulated in Article 11, Article 12, and Article 13 of Perki SLIP. Second, MHS had information requests in an intimidating way (i.e., angry, impolite, etc.) to the
public agencies. Third, MHS always disputes the public agencies to the KIP. Fourth, MHS was disrespectful at the trial of the KIP..
In the context of justice, MHS’s behavior is contempt of court or disrespectful to the court. The contempt of court done by MHS was by publicly demonstrated the vote
of no confidence to the KIP Commissioners. Fifth, MHS’s actions spread in Indonesia, such as Central Java, West Java, Banten, Sumatera, and Kalimantan that became the target of MHS’s information request.
MHS’s behavior is considered not sincere and in good faith information requests (vexatious request). Then, it became one of the considerations in revising the Perki PPSIP to be Perki No. 1 of 2013 regarding the Procedure of Public Information Dispute Resolution, where Article 3 and Article 4 are regulated about the not sincere and in good faith information request.
[1] Forest Watch Indonesia Researcher
[2] Perki No. 2 of 2011 regarding the Procedure of Public Information Dispute Resolution has changed with Perki No. 1 of 2013 regarding the Procedure of Public Information Dispute Resolution.