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Court orders revision of jobs law
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Protesters hold banners during a protest against Job Creation Law, or omnibus law, at Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat in Jakarta on Oct. 28, 2020. The banner reads 'Revoke the omnibus law for our children and grandchildren.' (Antara/Hafidz Mubarak A.)
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n a blow to the administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that the procedure of passing the Job Creation Law, the key legislation for the President’s ambitious yet controversial reform agenda, was unconstitutional.
The court ordered the government and the House of Representatives to revise the law — which remains effective despite being declared unconstitutional — within two years. If they fail to do so, the law — dubbed an omnibus as it was made to revise and combine dozens of laws — will be permanently repealed and all the previous laws it has replaced must be reinstated.
“The court ordered lawmakers to revise the law in two years from the moment this ruling is being read. If no revisions have been made within that deadline, Law No. 11/2020 on job creation will become permanently unconstitutional,” Chief Justice Anwar Usman, who read the ruling, said on Thursday.
In a close five to four vote, the bench also ordered the government not to issue any derivative regulations while it was working to revise the law.
‘Short cut’ legislation
In its ruling, the court argued that the process of making the law had been flawed, while Article 22A of the 1945 Constitution mandates that lawmaking should be carried out according to prevailing procedures, as stipulated under a 2011 law on the drafting of laws and regulations, which does not recognize an omnibus law.
The jobs law, enacted just a few months into the coronavirus pandemic last year, has been riddled with controversies since day one. While the government and businesses claimed that the law was made with the sole purpose of making the country more business-friendly to create jobs, trade unions and environmental groups consider many of its provisions regressive for rolling back decades of labor and environmental reforms.
