Constitutional Court No. 35/PUU-X/2012

The fourth paragraph of the Preamble of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (hereinafter referred to as the 1945 Constitution) has very clearly stated the aim of the establishment of the Unitary State of Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) is "to protect all the people of Indonesia and all the independence and the land that has been struggled for, and to improve public welfare, to educate the life of the people and to participate toward the establishment of a world order based on freedom, perpetual peace and social justice ". That paragraph would then become the basis of the formulation of Article 33 paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution that mandates the state to use the land, the waters and the natural resources within for the greatest benefit of the people. Therefore, all laws governing the land, water and all natural resources in Indonesia should refer to the aim intended through Article 33 of 1945 Constitution (Exhibit P - 2);

In implementing constitutional mandate, in the forestry sector as one of natural resources, the government prepared Law Number 41 Year 1999 on Forestry (hereinafter referred to as the Forestry Law). Article 3 of the Forestry Law states that "Forest management shall be aimed at providing maximum prosperity for the people based on justice and sustainability; 4 In fact for more than 10 years of enactment, the Forestry Act has been used as a tool by the state to take over the rights of indigenous peoples over their customary forests areas to become state forest, which then on behalf of the state were given/or handed over to capital owners, through various licensing schemes to be exploited without consideration to the rights and local wisdom of indigenous peoples in the region, this has led to conflict between indigenous peoples with enterpreneurs exploiting their customary forest. Such practices occur in most parts of the Republic of Indonesia, which ultimately led to the rejection of the enforcement of the Forestry Law (Exhibit P-3);