T

he Constitutional Court declared on Thursday that several provisions within the 2014 Plantation Law were conditionally unconstitutional, as they did not provide legal certainty to farmers and indigenous communities.

The petition was filed in October last year by a number of civil society organizations, such as the Palm Oil Farmers Society (SPKS), the Sawit Watch and the Farmer Initiatives for Ecological Livelihood and Democracy (FIELD), claiming that the implementation of 12 provisions within the law violated the rights of farmers and indigenous people.

Six provisions were then declared by the court as conditionally unconstitutional, meaning that farmers and indigenous communities are excluded from the implementation of them.

The aforementioned six provisions include Article 27, point (3), which requires any individual or companies to obtain a permit from the government before collecting genetic resources for a plantation, and Article 55, which bars any parties, including indigenous communities, from illegally cultivating a plot of land.

Presiding judge Aswanto said Article 27, point (3) was akin to Article 9, point 3 of the 1992 Plant Cultivation System Law, which was annulled by the court in 2013, thus making the former not legally binding.

Aswanto added that Article 55 had given uncertainty for indigenous communities. “Indigenous communities are not cultivating land illegally if they are carrying out their activities on communal land,” Aswanto read the verdict.