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Jakartans continue to hold their breath for court ruling in air pollution case
The citizen lawsuit is the first of its kind aiming to hold authorities accountable for air pollution in the country.
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Thick smog blankets the high-rise buildings of Jakarta's business district along Jl. Sudirman on Oct. 9, 2019. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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akartans will have to wait longer for a ruling in an air pollution case after the court delayed it for the second time, with reports showing that air quality in the capital has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The citizen lawsuit is the first of its kind aiming to hold authorities accountable for air pollution in the country. It was filed with the Central Jakarta District Court in July 2019 by 32 residents of Greater Jakarta against seven public officials: the President, the environment minister, the health minister, the home minister and the governors of Jakarta, Banten and West Java. The plaintiffs demanded that they devise policies to improve air quality in Jakarta.
The panel of three judges was supposed to read the ruling on May 20 but postponed it until June 10, saying that documents from the plaintiffs and defendants were incomplete for cross-examination. On Thursday, the judges delayed their decision once again, claiming they needed extra time to read through all the documents they had received.
“We are very sorry that we cannot deliver the verdict just yet,” presiding judge Saifuddin Zuhri said during the hearing on Thursday.
The case hearings have also been plagued with delays, with representatives of the Banten administration failing to attend several times. Mediation meetings between the plaintiffs and the defendants failed to lead to an agreement, pushing the lawsuit into the realm of the court.
Read also: Jakarta air pollution lawsuit still in limbo after a year of proceedings
Expressing her clients' disappointment, Ayu Eza Tiara from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) who represents the petitioners in this case, said the delays in delivering the ruling were against the principles of quick, simple and inexpensive trials, as stipulated in a 2009 law on judicial powers.
