Court issues ruling on class action

Court issues ruling on class action

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Amid the wide misperception and rejection of class action
lawsuits, the Supreme Court has issued a regulation requiring the
district court and judges to accept class action suits filed by
groups who may have been wrongfully victimized in environmental,
forestry or consumer protection cases.

The regulation that took effect April 26, 2002, was issued to
follow up Law No. 23/1997 on environment, Law No. 8/1999 on
consumer protection and Law No. 41/1999 on forestry.

The regulation allows any group of people victimized by
actions, policies or activities carried out by the state or
private institutions, to file lawsuits through their
representatives.

The updated regulation is meant to provide a more effective
means for groups in pursing legal action.

Soeharto (no relation to the former president), a deputy to
the chief justice on civil matters, said that despite its limited
coverage, the regulation allowed a group of people victimized by
any policies made by the government and other state institutions
and private ones to file a class action suit without fear that
their lawsuits would be nullified due to the absence of a law on
it.

"Judges at the lower court are obliged to give a positive
response to cases in the three fields of environment, consumer
protection and forestry. But, any groups of victimized people and
their representatives must know its legal procedure," he said
recently.

The ruling also stipulates that judges are obliged to
investigate and hear class action suits based on violations of
the law with strong material evidence and witnesses. The court's
verdicts in class action cases must be announced through the mass
media to let the group of victimized people know about them.

"In case of financial compensation, judges must make the
details of the verdicts public, and must notify the victimized
people for the purpose of the compensation distribution," he
said, adding that during a trial, the group of plaintiffs would
not be required to attend.

He acknowledged that lower courts have frequently turned down
class action cases because of the absence of legislation.

"Only the three laws regulate class action suits," he said,
adding that the Supreme Court had no legislative authority to
make the law.

Class action lawsuits are a new phenomenon in Indonesia --
first introduced in the late 1990s -- so most people, including
those in the legal profession, are not accustomed to such cases.
So far, 45 cases have been brought to the court but only a few
were accepted.

Numerous judges have opposed class action suits which are
based on the English Common Law system as inapplicable because
the law in Indonesia is based on the continental or civil law
system, which does not have a tradition of such lawsuits.

In March, the Central Jakarta District Court ruled in favor of
Wardah Hafidz, chairwoman of the Urban Poverty Consortium (UPC),
when she, along with an alliance of NGOs filed a class action
suit against the Jakarta administration over its failure to cope
with the recent flooding that claimed more than 25 lives and
caused millions of rupiah in material losses to Jakartans.

The court has also ruled in favor of representatives of a
group of people who were evicted in a military-backed land
clearance operation in several areas of the city.