A number of business groupings have filed for a judicial review on the 2007 Law on Limited Liability Companies with the Constitutional Court, arguing the law contradicts other laws and creates legal uncertainty.
The plaintiffs, consisting of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), the Indonesian Women's Business Association (Iwapi) and the Indonesian Young Entrepreneurs Association (Hipmi), submitted preliminary legal documents to the court on Friday.
Hariyadi B. Sukamdani, a Kadin deputy chairman, said the businesses demanded in particular that the court annul article 74 of the Law, which declares corporate social responsibility (CSR) to be mandatory.
"The Law should only regulates how a corporation is set up and how meetings of the board of directors and commissioners are to be held, not how a corporation should carry out its responsibilities to social communities," he said.
"All (these laws) are confused since we already have the Environment Law, Labor Law, Water Resource Law, Investment Law and others that all stipulate a corporation's responsibilities and rights," he added.
He also said it was unclear how CSR should be categorized, arguing that CSR appeared to be "an additional government legal levy" or another tax, while a CSR program should be carried out voluntarily.
"We pay taxes according to the Tax Law, *which provides* a strong legal basis for the central government to collect taxes from firms."
He said Kadin had never been invited during the deliberations on these matters and that article 74 was included in the law at the "last minute" by legislators, without "clear grounds".
"The article is flawed from the beginning because it came up without thorough professional study," he said.
He said, a preliminary hearing would be held in the next two or three weeks.
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