The Petitioner’s legal counsel Raja Martahi Nadeak at the petition revision hearing for the judicial review of the Job Creation Law, Thursday (3/6/2025). Photo by MKRI/Panji.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — Perkumpulan Pemantau Sawit (Sawit Watch) as the Petitioner of case No. 181/PUU-XXII/2024 has revised their petition for the judicial review of Article 12A, Article 17A, and Article 110B of Law No. 18 of 2013 on the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction (P3H Law) as amended by Article 37 paragraph (4) points 4, 6, and 20 of Law No. 6 of 2023 on Job Creation. They argued that the articles have caused constitutional harm to vulnerable members of communities around palm oil plantations and hindered sustainable transformation of palm oil plantations.

“The Petitioner believes [the articles] have caused constitutional harm to their members and the farmers that they counsel, are not in support of vulnerable members of communities around palm oil plantations, have led to injustice to smaller palm oil plantations, and have hindered sustainable transformation of palm oil plantations,” said legal counsel Raja Martahi Nadeak at the petition revision hearing on Thursday, March 6, 2025.

He proceeded to read the revised petitums. The Petitioner requests the Court to grant their petition in its entirety; to declare unconstitutional and not legally binding the phrases “excluded” and “and registered in the Forest Area arrangement policy” in Article 12A paragraph (2) as well as Article 17A paragraph (2) of Law No. 18 of 2013 if not interpreted as “excluded and resolved through the arrangement of the Forest Area;” to declare the phrase “other activities” in Article 110B paragraph (1) of Law No. 18 of 2013 unconstitutional and not legally binding; to declare the phrase “at least for 5 (five) consecutive years within an area of at most 5 (five) hectares” in Article 110B paragraph (2) unconstitutional and not legally binding if not interpreted as “does not apply to individuals who have controlled/owned and used their land before it was designated as a forest area.”

Also read: Palm Oil Association Challenges Job Creation on Forestry

The Petitioner is an organization established in 1998 to conduct studies on policies and laws relating to the management of natural resources, especially palm oil and its impact on ecology, society, and economy. They are represented by executive board coordinator Nurhanudin Achmad. They argued that administrative sanctions and administrative fines in forestry regulated by Law No. 18 of 2013 are not a true solution because they would only give oil palm large companies in forest areas impunity.

The Petitioner also wants to fight for their legal interests as they aim to seek and provide legal justice and legal certainty to farmers/planters and indigenous peoples who have lived around and within Indonesian forest areas, so as to realize their vision and mission. They believe the enforcement of these articles would hinder the realization of their vision, mission, and efforts to fight for people’s sovereignty in natural resource management through the protection, preservation, utilization, and control of natural resources in a fair and sustainable manner.

The Petitioner explained that many individuals residing in and/or around forest areas who carry out activities as referred to in Article 12 letters a through f and/or letter h of the Law have not been registered in the forest area arrangement policy. Therefore, it is the Government’s duty to carry out forest area arrangement for these individuals. This registration requirement as stipulated in Article 12A of the Law has led to the Government potentially acting repressively against unregistered individuals.

The Petitioner argued that the Government should have acted persuasively towards these unregistered individuals by registering them.

Constitutional Justices M. Guntur Hamzah (panel chair), Daniel Yusmic P. Foekh, and Ridwan Mansyur presided over the hearing. Before adjourning the session, Justice Guntur stated that the hearing would be reported to the other constitutional justices through a justice deliberation meeting to decide whether the petition will be decided without plenary evidentiary hearings or whether it will continue to evidentiary hearings to present experts, relevant parties, and/or testifiers.

Author            : Mimi Kartika
Editor            : N. Rosi
PR                 : Fauzan F.
Translator       : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

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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