Petition revision hearing for the material judicial review hearing of Law No. 18 of 2013 on the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction (P3H Law) as amended by Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation, Tuesday (5/10/2022). Photo by Humas MK/BPE.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2022 | 12:10 WIB

JAKARTA, Public Relations—The Constitutional Court (MK) held the another material judicial review hearing of Law No. 18 of 2013 on the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction (P3H Law) as amended by Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation on Tuesday, May 10, 2022. The case No. 45/PUU-XX/2022 was filed by Mandala Yasin, executive director of PT James and Armando Pundimas.

The hearing had been scheduled to examine the revisions to the Petitioner’s petition, but he had requested through his legal counsel to withdraw it. Panel chair Constitutional Justice Manahan M. P. Sitompul confirmed that the request letter had been submitted on May 9.

“We would only like to [request confirmation] that the letter had been sent to the Constitutional Court,” he said.

Legal counsel Maruli Tua Sinaga confirmed that the letter had been issued and sent by the law firm Margono-Surya & Partners.

“With this letter, the Court has officially received the withdrawal of the petition No. 45/PUU-XX/2022. As the examination is complete, the hearing is adjourned,” he concluded.

Also read: Exec of PT James and Armando Pundimas Challenges P3H Law

The Petitioner challenges Article 17 paragraph (1) letter a of the P3H Law, which reads, “Anybody shall be prohibited from bringing heavy duty equipment and/or other for equipment usually or allegedly used to conduct plantation activities and/or carry mining products in forest land without a permit from the Minister.”

The Petitioner’s company, which engages in mining, has permit over a mining area in Molawe Subdistrict, North Konawe Regency, Southeast Sulawesi. Counsel Ricky Margono said that the mining area was a limited production forest. Based on Article 1 point 10 of Government Regulation No. 104 of 2015 on Procedures for Changes to the Designation and Function of Forest Areas, limited production forests are forests devoted to the exploitation of low-intensity timber through selective logging.

In order to be able to do business on the land, the Petitioner must apply for a lease-to-use forestry permit (IPPKH) and first needs to enter the forest area for pegging or determining coordinate points in order to ascertain the area that he can managed. However, due to the unclear interpretation of the words “other” and “allegedly” in the a quo article, it is very possible for the Petitioner to be suspected of carrying out illegal mining for using a light vehicle when conducting boundary pegging.

“The Petitioner feels that the unclear formulation of the article will potentially make him a suspect due to alleged illegal mining, thus restricting his basic freedoms to obtain protection for his tools or vehicles,” said Ricky virtually before Constitutional Justices Manahan M. P. Sitompul (panel chair), Wahiduddin Adams, and Saldi Isra.  

Writer        : Utami Argawati
Editor        : Nur R.
PR            : Raisa Ayudhita
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Translation uploaded on 5/10/2022 13:44 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.

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