Teacher Istu Prayogi spent the 1990s living in Indonesia’s congested capital of Jakarta, all the time battling a runny nose, headaches and shortness of breath.
It turned out the problem was all around him, and he was not the only one suffering.
“I was diagnosed by a pulmonary specialist with spots in my lungs caused by air pollution,” Istu, a teacher at the Nusantara Jaya Tourism Academy, told Al Jazeera.
“The government didn’t pay attention to the poor air quality in Indonesia.”
Now, Istu who has since moved to the satellite city of Depok on the outskirts of Jakarta is one of 32 plaintiffs in a landmark citizen lawsuit that aims to hold the government responsible for failing to fulfill Indonesian citizens’ right to clean air.
Jakarta’s Central District Court will deliver its verdict on the case on June 10, after almost two years of legal wrangling over who is to blame for the filthy air of a city that is regularly ranked among the world’s most polluted, according to world air quality indexes.
Even during restrictions imposed last year to curb the spread of COVID-19, Jakarta’s streets were congested and air pollution exceeded WHO and national guidelines [File: Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters]
In 2019, a study produced by Vital Strategies and the Bandung Institute of Technology (BIT) found that Indonesia had the highest number of premature deaths associated with air pollution in Southeast Asia. The report also found that, in Jakarta, “the levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), the pollutant most hazardous to health, routinely exceeded that of the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines by four or five times”.
As part of the citizen lawsuit – a legal manoeuvre in which private citizens traditionally file a lawsuit in an effort to enforce a statute and a tactic often used in environmental law cases – the plaintiffs are not requesting financial compensation but instead hope that legal action will raise public awareness of the issue of air pollution in Jakarta and pressure the government to act.
The suit names Indonesia’s president, the minister of Environment and Forestry, the minister of Home Affairs, the governor of Jakarta and the governors of Banten and West Java provinces.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs have asked that the panel of judges presiding over the case declare that the defendants have been negligent in fulfilling citizens’ rights to a healthy living environment and order them to tighten national air quality standards.
“We need a more robust legal framework and more progressive laws and sanctions regarding air pollution,” Leonard Simanjuntak, the country director of Greenpeace Indonesia, who is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit as a private citizen, told Al Jazeera.
Human rights issue
More than 10 million people live in Jakarta, but that number swells beyond 30 million once those in its five satellite cities and surrounding regencies – the site of thousands of industrial estates and manufacturing hubs – are included.
“This case is so important because we already know that breathing clean air is our right as humans,” Bondan Andriyanu, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Indonesia told Al Jazeera.
“Air pollution on today’s scale clearly violates the rights to life and health, the rights of the child and the right to live in a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This human rights perspective changes everything because the government then has clear, legally enforceable obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights [of the citizens].”
