The Constitutional Court recently gave a nod to one of the most controversial laws in Indonesia's history: the pornography law, promptly igniting rage and criticism from women's and human rights groups. Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika immediately said his region, which depends largely on tourism, would not comply with the law.

But the decision was not without a fight. Maria Farida Indrati, the only female in the panel of nine Constitutional justices, gave a dissenting opinion. She supported the plaintiffs request to review the law on the grounds that it failed to ensure legal certainty for all people. She recently talked to The Jakarta Post's Arghea Desafti Hapsari about her reasons to stand opposed to the law and the consequences of the court's decision. Here are the excerpts of the interview.

Question: What is the most fundamental reason to oppose the pornography law?

Answer: The law's definition of pornography itself is unclear and opens the way for varied interpretations. It says that pornography includes writings, pictures, animations, cartoons, (that contain obscenity or sexual exploitation) and so on, that violate the norms of decency in societies. The question is: in which society?

Indonesia is a very pluralistic country. The societies here have different cultures and different religions, and therefore they have different decency norms. It is possible to have one thing regarded as pornographic in one place but not in another. Now, a law should be applicable anywhere in the country and not be (applied differently) in every city.

There are countries that apply laws on pornography, but the laws don't pose problems for them because. their peoples are homogenous, they hold the same religions and so on. So you cannot take references from other countries.

So the problem with the law is because there are no agreed sets of standards to define pornography?

Exactly. This country is home to everyone from those who (dress) in very conservative clothing to those (whose clothes) are very revealing. Article 4 in the law stipulates that (something is pornographic) when it gives an impression of nudity to the viewers. This does not give a clear boundary. In the article's explanation, depicting nudity is when someone wears body covering but still explicitly shows a genital. In medical terminology, genitals are a penis in males and vagina in females. So, if one wore clothes that covered all her body but not her breasts would that count as porn?

So there are loopholes, at least in terms of regulating which clothing is decent and which is not?

Well, you can say that. The bill for the porn law actually regulated how people dress. But there was huge resistance from the society. When a law faces that much rejection from when it was designed to the time it was deliberated, there has got to be something wrong with it.

But now that the Constitutional Court has decided to keep the law, there are bigger challenges to face: Implementing this law will not be easy.

Can you give us details?

There are issues with how the decency standards are different from one community to another. Also, there are problems with how the law regulates people's participation. Again, these problems root back to the fact that there are different sets of standards, so one might think something is pornographic but others might not. This will result in people taking law enforcement into their own hands.

Furthermore, the implementation of this law will have its impact in the regions. People who are decent and in line with community norms will be pictured as those who wear enveloping clothes. As a result, there will be bylaws that regulate this.

But the makers of this law say that it was designed to protect women and children from exposure to pornography. What do you have to say about that?

Well, (that purpose) is not reflected in the law. Of all the articles, there are only two that mentions child protection, banning people from producing or reproducing child pornography.

This is already regulated in the law on child protection. In fact, there are many things that the porn law regulates that have been regulated in other laws. Are these laws useless? And if the pornography law is implemented, won't it contradict other laws?