Lawmakers in the House of Representatives were finally able to reach compromise on the Mass Organization Bill on Tuesday, as the country's largest union vowed to appeal the controversial restriction to Indonesia's freedom of assembly laws in the Constitutional Court.
The bill was passed after 311 out of 561 lawmakers attending Tuesday's plenary session voted in favor. Some 50 lawmakers voted against it, with the remainder electing to abstain.
"This result is something we all should respect," Deputy Speaker Taufik Kurniawan, a member of the National Mandate Party, said after the law was passed on Tuesday.
Lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party were among the supporters of the bill - 107 Democrats voted in its favor.
The House of Representatives was scheduled to pass the bill on June 25, but several factions - Hanura, the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), the United Development Party (PPP), the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the National Mandate Party (PAN) - demanded that the House postpone the ratification.
While human rights groups and labor associations viewed the bill as a potential threat to their effectiveness, Islamist organizations objected to the inclusion of Pancasila as a prerequisite for permissible assembly.
The newly passed Mass Organization Bill addressed the latter concern by dropping the requirement for groups to submit to Pancasila - a certain stumbling block for doctrinaire Islamic groups - in favor of a clause that required groups' guiding ideologies to not be at odds with Pancasila.
The latest version of the bill prohibits a group from committing blasphemy, promoting separatism and spreading violence.
Muhammadiyah, the country's second-largest Islamic organization, said in April that it would mount a legal challenge if the bill were passed, while the country's largest union confirmed it would be seeking to have the bill overturned.
"We will appeal it in the Constitutional Court," Said Iqbal, president of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Unions (KSPI), told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday. "With this bill, local governments can disband local union organizations if they go on strike: industry bodies are all for [the Mass Organizations Bill]."