- Lawyers for Indonesia’s main Indigenous alliance have initiated legal proceedings against the government for its failure to pass a long-awaited bill on Indigenous rights.
- The suit seeks to compel Indonesia’s parliament to expedite passage of the bill, which has remained deadlocked for more than a decade amid intransigence by elected representatives.
- “It still needs to be discussed,” a senior parliamentarian from the Golkar party said earlier this month.
- However, few expect any progress over the next few months, with a new parliament to be sworn in on Oct. 1 and a new president on Oct. 20.
JAKARTA — Civil society advocates representing more than 2,000 customary communities in Indonesia have initiated last-ditch legal challenges over parliament’s failure to pass an Indigenous rights bill during the 10-year administration of President Joko Widodo.
“It is very important that there is the guarantee of legal certainty concerning the recognition and protection of Indigenous peoples who are in a threatened position, and have even become victims of criminalization and land confiscation,” said attorney Fatiatulo Lazira.
Fatiatulo was retained by the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), the country’s largest advocacy group for Indigenous rights, in a March lawsuit targeting a breakthrough in the Indigenous peoples’ bill before the current administration leaves office in October.
AMAN first presented a draft bill to parliament in 2012, and lent its support to Jokowi, as the president is popularly known, for his successful 2014 election campaign.
In this year’s presidential election, on Feb. 14, a majority of Indonesian voters elected Prabowo Subianto to succeed Jokowi, who is reaching the end of his two-term limit.
“President Jokowi has only one year remaining in his term, hopefully the Indigenous peoples’ bill will be passed into law,” Dorince Mehue, an AMAN campaigner for the Papua region, said in September last year. “That’s our hope.”
At issue is a campaign dating back to the fall of strongman president Suharto in 1998 to enact legislation enshrining customary rights across the archipelago.
Indigenous peoples’ advocates refer to Article 18B of Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution, which reads: “The state recognizes and respects traditional communities along with their traditional customary rights as long as these remain in existence and are in accordance with the societal development and the principles of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, and shall be regulated by law.”
Successive governments have pledged to resolve the matter. A draft Indigenous rights bill has been placed on the list of national priority legislation every year since 2014, but never passed.
“There are many cases of confiscating customary territories and criminalization that have been exposed by witnesses,” said Judianto Simanjuntak, an attorney for AMAN.
The draft bill could, if passed, ease recognition of customary territory and protect Indigenous cultures. However, Indonesia’s parliament has consistently enacted less than 50% of its target legislation in any given year. The draft Indigenous bill, known in Indonesia as RUU Masyarakat Adat, has remained in deadlock for more than a decade.
In 2013, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court affirmed that Indigenous communities held rights to customary land. AMAN has cited that ruling ever since as precedent while it lobbies lawmakers to legislate the Indigenous rights bill.
“There are many complaints and they increase every year,” said Abdon Nababan, a former secretary-general of AMAN who attended the organization’s first meeting in 1999. “Conflicts on the ground are increasing.”
In August last year, AMAN sought to apply pressure on parliament in an official letter to lawmakers. With no response after three months, the civil society group initiated court proceedings.
“In accordance with the 90-day period, if there isn’t a response to the letter, we can sue,” said Judianto, the AMAN attorney.
The legislative process requires clearing a series of procedural hurdles, including obtaining a formal document identifying specific problems to be resolved in the draft legislation, known as a “problem inventory list,” or DIM by its Indonesian acronym.
“They always say that there is already a DIM,” Judianto said. “But we have never seen it.”
Few expect lawmakers to meet the deadline on this legislation as the clock runs down on the outgoing government, with a new parliament set to be sworn in on Oct.1 and the new president on Oct. 20.
“Yes, it is still being discussed, it needs to happen between the [party] factions,” Lodewijk Friedrich Paulus, a senior member of the Golkar party, said in parliament in the first week of April.
A key question remains how Prabowo, the president-elect, will grapple with the issue of Indigenous rights during the 2024-29 period.
“We will continue to lobby parliament, the government, take action and struggle,” said Judianto, as civil society waited on a ruling in the state court. “This [lawsuit] is just one way — we will not stop demanding our rights.”
Banner image: A mining company cut down the trees in the Kinipan traditional forest. Image courtesy of Save Kinipan.
This story was reported by Mongabay’s Indonesia team and first published here and here on our Indonesian site on March 14 and 31, 2024.
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