Indonesia – On 19 August 2025, eight civil society organisations, one individual, and twelve victims of National Strategic Projects (PSN) filed a judicial review petition at Indonesia's Constitutional Court challenging key provisions of the Job Creation Law (Law No. 6/2023) that legitimise facilitation and acceleration of PSN projects at the expense of constitutional rights and environmental protection.
The petitioners include the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI), and 19 other advocacy groups alongside indigenous peoples, farmers, fishermen, and academics affected by controversial development projects.
They argue that provisions scattered across forestry, spatial planning, sustainable food land protection, and coastal zone management laws grant excessive authority to the government to approve large-scale projects without adequate oversight, meaningful community participation, or protection for affected populations. The lawsuit targets specific articles including Article 3 letter d, Article 123 number 2, Article 124 number 1(2), Article 173(2) and (4), and Article 31(2), asserting these provisions enable misuse of "public interest" concepts to provide legal basis for business entities to seize residents' land including customary territories without sufficient protection, resulting in forced evictions contrary to Articles 28D and 28H of the 1945 Constitution guaranteeing legal certainty and human rights protection.
The challenged provisions permit conversion of sustainable food lands for PSN purposes without meaningful participation or fair compensation, threatening rights to food and agricultural sustainability in violation of Article 33(3) and (4) of the Constitution regarding state control over natural resources for public prosperity. The People's Movement Against PSN (GERAM PSN) emphasized that these norms concentrate power in executive hands while weakening legislative oversight, with the elimination of the People's Representative Council's role in approving forest area designation changes meaning large-scale development policies are determined entirely by the executive without checks and balances essential to democratic governance.
The first Constitutional Court hearing featured testimonies from communities directly impacted by PSN projects: indigenous Malind Anim, Makleuw, and Yei peoples from Merauke affected by the Food Estate project; Rempang Island residents threatened with eviction for the Rempang Eco City development; North Kalimantan communities impacted by the Green Industrial Zone; East Kalimantan residents displaced by the new National Capital construction; and Southeast Sulawesi communities affected by nickel mining operations. GERAM PSN stated that these testimonies demonstrate PSN impacts are "not legal abstractions, but reality of life in the form of loss of customary land and agricultural land, ecological damage that threatens living spaces, and criminalization of residents who reject projects."
Documented violation patterns concern communities resisting PSN projects. They face criminalisation, intimidation by security forces protecting corporate interests, arbitrary detention of activists and traditional leaders, and violence against environmental and human rights defenders. The petitioners requested that the Constitutional Court declare the challenged provisions contrary to the 1945 Constitution and without binding legal force, seeking to ensure accountability of state administrators in protecting constitutional rights while restoring principles of the rule of law, human rights protection, and ecological justice in national development practices.
This Constitutional Court challenge represents a critical test of Indonesia's commitment to constitutional governance and human rights protection in the context of aggressive infrastructure and extractive development agendas, raising fundamental questions about whether development models can be reconciled with constitutional guarantees of indigenous rights, environmental protection, and democratic participation. The Constitutional Court's ruling will have far-reaching implications not only for specific PSN projects but for Indonesia's entire approach to balancing development imperatives with constitutional obligations to protect citizen rights, indigenous territories, environmental sustainability, and democratic accountability.
The case aligns with international human rights standards including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which requires free, prior, and informed consent for developments affecting indigenous territories, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights protecting rights to adequate food and housing, and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which requires states to protect against corporate abuses.