Antara, Jakarta – Indonesia's Constitutional Court rejected a judicial review petition challenging Law Number 24 of 2007 Concerning Disaster Management filed by residents of Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, affected by forest fires, ruling that their arguments lacked a legal basis.
The petition, registered as Case No. 369/PUU-XXIV/2026, was filed by Damai Alam Usop, Krismen Sento Shaloho, Davit Purwodsrantau and Paulus Alfons Yance Dhanarto. The applicants challenged the constitutionality of the phrase "adequate" in Article 6(e) and Article 8(d) of Law No. 24 of 2007 on Disaster Management, arguing that it was inconsistent with Article 23(1) of the 1945 Constitution.
ANTARA reported that Constitutional Court Justice Liliek Prisbawono Adi, reading out the court's considerations during a plenary session at the court's main building in Jakarta on Thursday, said the phrase "adequate" did not contradict the 1945 Constitution.
"Therefore, the applicants' arguments that the phrase 'adequate' in Article 6(e) and Article 8(d) of Law No. 24 of 2007 is unconstitutional are unfounded and must be declared legally unjustified," Liliek said.
He added that, regarding the applicants' challenge to the phrase "adequate" in Article 8(d) based on the principle of fair and balanced financial relations between the central and regional governments under Article 18A(2) of the Constitution, the court considered that the provision mandated legislation to regulate such financial relations.
The legislature had fulfilled that mandate, among other measures, through Law No. 1 of 2022 on Financial Relations between the Central Government and Regional Governments, which regulates mechanisms for transferring funds to and financing regional administrations, he said.
The applicants had sought a conditional interpretation requiring regional budgets to be formulated professionally in line with each region's disaster risk level.
However, Liliek said the proposed interpretation would introduce new parameters that could create legal uncertainty and narrow the meaning of the term "adequate" in the law.
He also addressed the applicants' argument that the risk of forest fires was concentrated in peatland regions such as Central Kalimantan, creating an increasingly uneven fiscal burden.
According to the court, the issue concerned fiscal transfer policies, spending priorities and the practical implementation of the law, rather than the constitutionality of the phrase "adequate" in Article 8(d) of the Disaster Management Law.
"Therefore, all of the applicants' arguments are legally unfounded," Liliek said.
The four applicants, all residents of Palangka Raya affected by forest fires, had argued that the absence of objective criteria for determining adequate disaster-management funding created legal uncertainty and failed to safeguard their constitutional right to a healthy environment from the effects of forest fires.