Yesterday’s decision by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court to reject a petition filed by conservative Muslim groups to criminalize gay sex and all consensual sex outside of marriage was hailed by many human rights defenders as an important legal victory, but coverage of the ruling was somewhat overshadowed in the Indonesian media by another decision handed down by the country’s highest court yesterday, one preventing companies from legally prohibiting their employees from getting married.
Previously, many companies in Indonesia prohibited their workers from marrying each other, with the most common justifications being that it was necessary to prevent nepotism and that marriage between coworkers could disrupt the professional atmosphere at any given workplace. This often lead to cases in which one member of an engaged couple had to resign from their job in order for the other to keep their position after their marriage.
In May, a group of eight employees filed for a judicial review of the law with the Constitutional Court, arguing that the sanctity of marriage should supersede any company policy.
Yesterday, the court ruled in favor of their petition, with Chief Justice Arief Hidayat stating that Article 153 Paragraph 1 of the Employment Law, which gave companies the legal ability to stipulate restrictions on marriage within employment contracts, was contradictory to the constitution and thus had no binding legal force.
“Marriage is a condition that cannot be planned nor circumvented, therefore making it into a condition through which the fulfillment of human rights can be overridden, in this case the right to work and the right to form family, can not be accepted as a constitutionally legitimate reason in accordance with article 28 of the 1945 Constitution,” Justice Aswanto wrote in his position in favor of the petition as quoted by Detik.
Hariyadi Sukamdani, chairman of the Indonesian Employers Association (APINDO), said the ruling was disappointing in that it curtailed the rights of employers and would force them to make more restrictive hiring and employment choices in the future in order to avoid the problems the now nullified law sought to address.
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