Jakarta Citizens Class Action Lawsuit For Anies Baswedan And The DKI Provincial Government

Jakarta Floods (Irvan Meidianto / VOi)

JAKARTA - A group of people on behalf of the DKI Jakarta Flood Victims Advocacy Team will sue the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government due to the floods that hit the Jakarta area in early 2020. The lawsuit will be brought to the Central Jakarta District Court.

Coordinator of the DKI Jakarta Flood Victims Advocacy Team, Diarson Lubis, said that the documents were ready. "The plan is that today, around 2 pm, we will pay the Central Jakarta District Court to file the lawsuit," said Diarson when contacted, Monday, January 13.

Diarson said, previously there were about 700 cases that were included in the collection of citizen reports, both on WhatsApp and email services with the address [email protected].

However, more than half of the cases that were not included in the accumulated lawsuit were due to incomplete files and less strong evidence of harm.

"After we verified, there were around 270 complete data. Based on the complete data, we attracted representatives of 20 residents to come," he said.

Furthermore, Diarson stated that the current losses suffered by the residents who filed a lawsuit reached at least Rp. 43 billion.

For information, this civil law suit was sparked because there were several residents who felt material losses due to the floods. Therefore, they asked Anies to take responsibility as the control holder of the flood management program in DKI.

"Initially we were invited to a discussion with the residents. The residents complained (about the loss) and consulted whether this could be prosecuted or not. Finally, we said that there is a space regulated by law called class action," said Diarson.

This advocacy team consists of four people, namely Diarson Lubis, Alvon K. Palma, Ridwan Darmawan, and Azas Tigor Nainggolan. "Who will be the representative of the group, now he will represent," he explained.

Currently, the report files are being verified by the advocacy team to check the completeness of the files. After that, they will file a lawsuit in court next week.

Meanwhile, Head of the Water Resources Service, Juaini Yusuf, admitted that the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government had discussed a class action lawsuit plan filed by some residents of Jakarta who were flood victims. Seeing that this lawsuit will be filed against government agencies, all legal matters at the court will be handled by the DKI Legal Bureau.

"It was discussed earlier. That will be the law firm that will answer, because if we (SDA) are only technical (policy) matters," said Juaini when met at the City Hall of DKI.