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leading human rights activist has cited the 2012 Law on Yogyakarta’s special status as the source of agrarian conflict and injustices in Yogyakarta and has called for it to be revised.

Articles 32 and 33 of the law regulating land ownership in the province, which recognizes dualist provincial leadership under the Yogyakarta Sultanate and the Pakualaman Principality, came in for particular criticism.

“Civil society needs to push the House of Representatives to revise articles 32 and 33 of Law No. 13/2012 as both articles have allowed the Yogyakarta Sultanate and the Pakualaman Principality to claim ownership of land in the past,” National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) commissioner Dianto Bachriadi said on Thursday.

Dianto was speaking after addressing a discussion on land management and implementation of the law on Yogyakarta’s special status at the Yogyakarta provincial legislative council.

“If necessary both articles should be omitted from the law so that it only regulates cultural matters,” he added.

Dianto said the two articles had been the cause of various agrarian conflicts and injustices in Yogyakarta as they allowed the expropriation of land belonging to the people and the state. During the Dutch colonial era the then autonomous regional institutions — the Yogyakarta Sultanate and Pakualaman Principality — were allowed to claim land stipulated in the Rijksblad law as the sultan’s land or Pakualaman land.

“If the Rijksblad is implemented again, then we move 200 years backward,” Dianto said.

Article 4 (1) of Government Regulation (PP) No. 224/1961 stipulates that land formerly belonging to former autonomous regions are subject to land reform.

“The two articles on land in the law on Yogyakarta’s special status therefore contravene the Agrarian Law,” Dianto said.

He suggested that if the two articles were not removed then they should be limited to regulate only land related to cultural or institutional matters such as land used for palace buildings, mosques and other facilities.

Yogyakarta Palace lawyer Achiel Suyanto has said on a number occasions that the 2012 law is lex specialis (an exception) to the Agrarian Law.

However, state administration expert Ni’matul Huda of the Indonesian Islamic University (UII) said the 2012 law could not be considered as an exception to the Agrarian Law and therefore the former had to adjust itself to the latter, especially with regard to land matters.

Agrarian expert Ahmad Nashih Luthfi of the State Agrarian College (STPN) concurred, saying that the 2012 law had in fact caused agrarian conflicts to increase in the province, resulting in at least 20 serious cases since its implementation.