Medan, Indonesia – For the past week, commercial lawyer Christopher Panal Lumban Gaol’s phone has been ringing off the hook.
The legal eagle, who is also a lecturer in business law at Santo Thomas Catholic University in Medan, North Sumatra, has been inundated with inquiries about the specifics and effects of a perplexing ruling handed down by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court on the country’s controversial jobs creation law.
While the government has touted the legislation as a way to entice foreign investment and create jobs, unions and labour activists have criticised its reforms for undermining job security, wages and workers’ rights.
“Naturally, there is much confusion about how a law can have been deemed ‘unconstitutional’ while also still applying for the next two years,” Gaol told Al Jazeera.
In its ruling last month, the Constitutional Court found a number of procedural faults that rendered the legislation “unconstitutional” after the law was challenged by Indonesian labour unions. The government has been given two years to fix the faults, failing which, the legislation will be deemed permanently invalid.
Following the November 25 ruling, unions and business owners have been left wondering what the future may hold given the ambiguous outcome.
“We appreciate the ruling, but we had hoped that the law would be deemed completely unconstitutional and cancelled. The Constitutional Court has now added to our workload,” Jumisih, the deputy head of the Indonesia United...
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