The Constitutional Court (MK) performed a judicial review toward Chapter 35 Article (a) Law No. 39 about Placement of and Protection for Indonesian Workers Abroad (Law PPTKI), the agenda was to hear Government’s and House of Representatives’ (DPR) explanations. The session took place on Thursday, February 15, 2007, at 10:00AM, in MK Court Room, Medan Merdeka Barat Street No. 7, Jakarta.

In that session, Kurnia Wamilda  and Sangap Sidauruk S.H. each represented  cases No 028/PUU-IV/2006 and No. 29/PUU-IV/2006.  While the Government represented by Mr. Erman Suparno, the Minister of Labor and Transmigration (Depnakertrans);  I Gusti Made Arke,  General Director for Placement of and Protection for Indonesian Workers Abroad;  Andi Syahrul,  Law Bureau Director; and Mualimin Abdi, Chair of Litigation Division Dephukham.  None of members of DPR attended the session.

  All petitioners had revised their petitions based on Judges’ advice during the previous session. In the preceding session, a lawyer of one of the petitioners (file No. 028/PUU-IV/2006) had changed his position from the power of attorney and the principal petitioner to merely the power of attorney.  

 The other lawyer had also revised his petition from a request to review the whole Chapter 35 Article (a) Law PPTKI to review only certain sentence on that Chapter 35 Article (a) “…except for potential employees who are going to work for individual employers should be at least 21 years old.”

In his descriptions, the Minister said that the determination of age limitation of Indonesian workers based on considerations that at 21, people are more mature and can protect themselves from sexual harassments.  In fact, after the enforcement of this Law, the Minister noted that the number of sexual harassments had decreased from 16% to 4%. However, the workers faced other kinds of abuses, including physical abuse, no compensation, cruel and inhumane treatments. These are the real conditions that the Government must think about.

However, the lawyers argued that limitations of age eventually halt a lot of people to work abroad. As a result, many people had manipulated their identifications, including their ages. Thus Chapter 35 Article (a) Law PPTKI by fact was against Chapter 27 Clause (2) and Chapter 28B, the 1945 Constitution. 

Before closing the session, Prof. Jimly Asshiddiqie, Chairman of the Constitutional Court, advised the petitioners and the Government to invite experts on Labor who would give further explanations that might strengthen petitioners’ or the Government’s arguments. Mr. Chairman also requested DPR to submit official statements as the law maker. (NM)