- Indonesia’s controversial Job Creation Law is facing new legal challenges from civil society groups who say it weakens environmental protections and human rights.
- One lawsuit targets provisions that restrict public involvement in environmental impact assessments and remove key legal tools for opposing harmful projects.
- A second lawsuit challenges special privileges granted to large-scale infrastructure projects, accusing the law of facilitating forced evictions and land grabs.
- A case study cited in the legal battle is the Rempang Eco City project, which residents say has displaced Indigenous communities without their consent and through the use of violence.
JAKARTA — Indonesian civil society groups are challenging a controversial law they say enables forced evictions, weakens environmental protections, and encourages elite-driven megaprojects at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Two major coalitions of NGOs and affected individuals have filed separate lawsuits with the Constitutional Court. Both suits, known as judicial reviews, tale aim at Indonesia’s sweeping 2020 “omnibus law,” which critics say facilitates environmentally harmful and socially unjust megaprojects across the country.
The omnibus law, formally the Job Creation Law, was introduced by then-President Joko Widodo as a deregulation package intended to attract investment. Passed in October 2020, it amended more than 70 existing laws covering sectors such as labor, environment, and business licensing.
Despite near-universal opposition from environmental groups, labor unions, academics and students, the government pushed the law through parliament in just 167 days, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics warn it rolled back protections for workers and the environment in favor or business interests.
In 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled the law “procedurally unconstitutional” because of the way it was rushed through, citing a lack transparency and public consultation. Instead of scrapping the law, however, Widodo issued a regulation to reintroduce it. Parliament ratified this version in March 2023 — effectively relegitimizing a law previously deemed unconstitutional, and reigniting legal and civil society opposition, including the two new judicial reviews.
Lawsuit 1: Eroding environmental safeguards
The first lawsuit, filed June 5 — World Environment Day — comes from a coalition that includes the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Indonesia’s largest green group. It challenges 13 articles in the law’s environmental section, which the plaintiffs say undercut long-standing protections.
One major concern is the narrowing of public participation in environmental impact assessments (known as AMDAL in Indonesia). Under the new law, only people deemed “directly affected” can participate — excluding environmental groups and broader civil society.
Previously, NGOs and impacted communities could join a committee that reviewed AMDAL documents. That body has now been replaced by an “Environmental Feasibility Testing Team” made up solely of government officials and certified experts, effectively removing independent oversight.
“This makes it even clearer that public space for overseeing environmental disputes has been restricted,” said Mulya Sarmono, a member of the plaintiffs’ legal team.
Walhi executive director Zenzi Suhadi added, “Environmental damage is not just caused by bulldozers, but by policy decisions — by a pen.”
The plaintiffs also criticize how the law eliminates environmental permits, replacing them with a self-declared “environmental approval” system on the part of developers. This shift removes a critical legal avenue that communities could previously use to challenge environmental permits in court.
“NGOs and the public no longer have legal avenue to challenge environmental decisions,” Mulya said, even if an approved project can be demonstrated to cause ecological and social harm.
And if an environmental approval does violate regulations, the law merely states that it can be revoked — not that it must be. Worse, the revocation no longer guarantees a project’s shutdown, as was the case under the previous environmental law.
As a result, there are even fewer mechanism to cancel a project even if it’s found to be harming the environment, Mulya said.
Lawsuit 2: ‘Strategically important’ projects
The second lawsuit, filed July 4, targets provisions related to so-called projects of strategic national importance, or PSN. These are large-scale infrastructure and industrial developments such as toll roads, airports, power plants, and even Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara capital.
The omnibus law strengthens legal protections for PSNs, fast-tracks licenses, and weakens safeguards around land rights and environmental impacts, critics say.
Eight NGOs and several affected individuals are suing to challenge nine articles that they say allow PSNs to bypass public interest regulations. Among their demands: removing special privileges for PSNs, restoring stronger definitions of “public interest,” and reinstating previous safeguards.
“In fact, almost all PSN projects involve alleged human rights violations, land grabbing from Indigenous peoples, refusal to recognize Indigenous communities, and inadequate compensation without genuine agreement,” Roni Saputra, director of law enforcement at environmental NGO Auriga Nusantara, one of the plaintiff organizations, said at a recent press conference in Jakarta.
A key point of concern is Article 123 of the omnibus law, which expands the definition of “public interest” to include privately run and/or foreign-controlled industrial zones — placing them in the same category of “public infrastructure” as roads, ports and airports.
Then there’s Article 173, which allows private entities — not just the government — to acquire land in the name of public interest. Under the previous law, only the state had this right of eminent domain.
“We seek to return the concept of public interest to its true essence, which rests on three key principles,” said Edy Kurniawan, advocacy deputy at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), one of the plaintiff organizations. “It must serve the people’s welfare, it must involve public participation, and it must respect the rights of communities.”
Rempang: A flashpoint case
The second lawsuit cites seven controversial PSN projects as examples, including the Rempang Eco City development in the Riau Islands, off the eastern coast of Sumatra.
Announced by the government in August 2023, the project would transform 7,000 hectares (17,000 acres) of Rempang Island into an industrial and tourism hub, including an $11.6 billion glass and solar panel factory by Hong Kong-based giant Xinyi International Investment. The project also includes an ecotourism resort and upscale housing estate. The development is also tied to a deal with neighboring Singapore to export 3.4 gigawatts of solar electricity to the city-state by around 2030.
The development calls for the eviction of most of Rempang’s approximately 7,500 residents, including many Indigenous seafarers, without their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), residents say.
“When the government designated the PSN, there was no communication with the community — no consultation on whether or not the people agreed to having the PSN imposed,” said Miswadi, a resident of Rempang. “They simply declared it a PSN without involving us at all.”
Protests broke out in September 2023, and again in late 2024, and were met with violent crackdowns by private and state security forces. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas, including at a middle school, and arrested more than 40 people.
In one incident, in September 2024, Siti Hawa, a 67-year-old grandmother, suffered a broken wrist after trying to protect fellow residents from being assaulted by a security guard. She is now one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit — despite facing criminal charges herself for her role in the protests.
Though the Rempang Eco City project is no longer listed among the 77 PSNs under Widodo’s successor, President Prabowo Subianto, it hasn’t been officially cancelled.
“For nearly a year, our economy was paralyzed because we were fighting for our rights and for our ancestral land,” said Miswadi, the Rempang islander. “For a whole year, we couldn’t go out and earn a living. We had to split our focus between putting food on the table and fighting for our rights.”
Though not a plaintiff in the lawsuit, Miswadi said he supports the judicial review.
“We were already living well — why do we need to be ‘made prosperous’ again through a PSN?” he said. “Why not preserve what we already have? If the government truly cared about our welfare, they would modernize and support the farmers who are already feeding this region — not displace them in the name of investment.”
Banner image: Clashes between local residents and security forces during a protest against a plan to build the world’s second-largest glass and solar panel factory on Rempang Island, Indonesia, on Sept. 7, 2023. Image courtesy of BP Batam.
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