International law expert Romli Atmasasmita testifying for the Government virtually at the judicial review hearing of Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation, Thursday (9/9/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Ifa.
Thursday, September 9, 2021 | 16:53 WIB
JAKARTA, Public Relations—Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation is the Government’s policy to anticipate the negative impacts of globalization, said international law expert Romli Atmasasmita in his testimony for the Government at the formal and material judicial review hearing of the Job Creation Law on Thursday, September 9, 2021.
Six cases were heard at the plenary hearing chaired by Chief Justice Anwar Usman: No. 91/PUU-XVIII/2020, 103/PUU-XVIII/2020, 105/PUU-XVIII/2020, 107/PUU-XVIII/2020, 4/PUU-XIX/2021, and 6/PUU-XIX/2021. The hearing had been scheduled to hear three experts for the Government.
Romli said some of the provisions of the 1945 Constitution reflected social justice, one of them being human rights in manpower. He believed the Job Creation Law had realized the welfare ideal as referred to in the articles of the 1945 Constitution. Not to mention, manpower issue has been made a second priority in the Job Creation Law.
Romli said the Job Creation Law is actually a solution to bureaucratic issues in business and expected to directly or indirectly prevent and reduce bribery and corruption, which led to high costs, a decline of Indonesia’s bargaining position in the global transaction, and a reduction in foreign investment. The government’s failure to improve regulatory efficiency and effectiveness on business is caused by legal uncertainty due to overregulation.
One of the most efficient ways to overcome it, Romli said, is by combining 76 provisions under one omnibus law in business. Lawmaking in the global economy requires an interdisciplinary approach of the law and economy.
“In order to reach that objective, collaboration between legal experts who understand the politics of economy and economists who understand legal politics is needed. The collaboration between the two disciplines forms comprehensive, prospective legal thinking in viewing the future impacts of the law,” he said regarding the case No. 103/PUU-XVIII/2020.
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Demographic Bonus
The Government also presented the Head of the Demographic Institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business of Universitas Indonesia (LD FEB UI) Turro Selrits Wongkaren to testify in case No. 4/PUU-XIX/2021. Wongkaren said state development must focus on the people as the people is the subject and object of development.
“Therefore, we need to start from the population’s condition. The 2020 population census by the Central Statistics Agency shows that Indonesia’s population is 270.2 million people, with a growth rate of around 1.25% per year. This places Indonesia fourth in the world in terms of population, after China’s 1.44 billion, India’s 1.38 billion, the United States’ 331 million,” he said.
The composition based on age, he said, is 23.3% of those aged 0-14, 70.7% of those in the productive age of 15-64, and 5.9% of elderly aged 65 and above. This is related to the term “demographic bonus” that is commonly mentioned in society, by the government or the academics.
The term, he added, means a condition that potentially benefits the economy due to the higher number of productive population. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) predicted that Indonesia had been having demographic bonus since 2012. It was predicted to end in 2036. “However, rarely discussed is the peak of the demographic bonus, which occurs between 2020 and 2024,” he explained.
Wongkaren further said that economic policies to increase economic growth and social policies to protect and increase population capacity are inseparable. Therefore, legal drafting on both policies needs to be done at once, so that at the same time it can take into account the needs of various parties. “With that consideration, according to experts, Law No. 11 of 2020 is not only very useful but also needed,” he stressed.
Effective Method
Next, the executive director of Kolegium Jurist Institute Ahmad Redi testified as an expert for case No. 6/PUU-XIX/2021. He explained the omnibus law was an effective method in solving the deadlock in Indonesia’s legal system. In 2015, he wrote an article in an online media about the idea of using the omnibus law in the Indonesian legal system. The concept developed in countries that uphold the common law system such as the US and the UK.
“The omnibus law is all-encompassing, comprehensive, and not bound to only one provision. It is one regulation that regulates various things and has power over the others,” he revealed.
His idea of the omnibus law started when he, as a young academic, were involved in lawmaking and saw firsthand the issues in legislation and regulations that continued to shadow Indonesia—conflict, distortion, misinterpretation, and multiple interpretation of norms. Long-lasting silo mentality of ministries/agencies in lawmaking is one of its factors. For example, regulations on natural resources lock one another.
“Law No. 4 of 2009 on Mineral and Coal Mining has a legal politic that the mineral in the earth be processed domestically, in Articles 102, 103, 170. Then Law No. 3 of 2009 on Industry, Article 101, states that all business activities require industrial business license,” Redi said.
As a result, Redi added, there is double license for the same activity. When building a smelter, a business must have license from two ministries, with two fees, two documents, two administrative processes, two potential moral hazards. This is how the distortion of norms occurs.
“Such legal practice in Indonesia hinders our economic development. This later became a disaster in the legal development in Indonesia. There is a tremendous domino effect in our mineral and coal sectors,” Redi said.
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Petition No. 91/PUU-XVIII/2020 was filed by Hakimi Irawan Bangkid Pamungkas and four other individuals. They believe the Court’s reasoning for the 45-day deadline of the formal judicial review is the swift confirmation and legal certainty of whether a law was formally legitimate or not as the review would repeal the law. Meanwhile, the petition No. 103/PUU-XVIII/2020 was filed by the Confederation of All Indonesian Labor Unions (KSBSI), represented by Elly Rosita Silaban and Dedi Hardianto. They filed for the formal and material judicial review of Articles 42, 43, 44, 56, 57, 59, 61, 61A, 66, and 88 of Law No. 11 of 2020.
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The Petitioners of case No. 105/PUU-XVIII/2020 are the chairman of the Garment and Leather Textile Workers’ Union Federation - All-Indonesian Workers Union Indonesia (PP FSP TSK-SPSI) Roy Jinto and 12 individual petitioners. They challenge the second part of Chapter IV of Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation: Article 81 point 1 (Article 13 paragraph (1) letter c of Law No. 13 of 2003 on Manpower) on work training by the company’s work training department, and Article 81 point 2 (Article 14 paragraph (1) of Law No. 13 of 2003) that private work training agencies as referred to in Article 13 paragraph (1) letter b must meet the requirements of the regency/city government-issued business permit.
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The case No. 107/PUU-XVIII/2020 was by the Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI) and 14 other petitioners. They allege that the planning of the Job Creation Law didn’t meet the formal requirements of lawmaking and that it violates the principle of transparency. Its formulation didn’t involve the general public, instead only did a select few. Even the authenticity of the bill drafts that were disseminated to the public were uncertain. Meanwhile, The general chairman of the Federation of Chemical, Energy, and Mine Workers Union - All-Indonesian Workers Union Indonesia R. Abdullah along with 662 other petitioners challenge Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation both materially and formally in the case No. 4/PUU-XIX/2021. The petition has the highest number of petitioners in the Court’s history.
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The Petitioners of case No. 6/PUU-XIXI/2021, Riden Hatam Aziz and three others, assert that the Job Creation Law doesn’t have legal certainty because its lawmaking process was formally defective. Therefore, in the petitum, they requested that the Court declare the law unconstitutional and repeal it.
Writer : Nano Tresna Arfana
Editor : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR : Raisa Ayudhita
Translator : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 9/13/2021 08:13 WIB
Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian versions, the Indonesian version will prevail.
Thursday, September 09, 2021 | 16:53 WIB 466