Revisiting Indonesia’s Mineral and Coal Mining Law: An Inquiry into the Adequacy of Public Participation

This article examines the development of the legal framework regulating mineral and coal mining in Indonesia, highlighting the adequacy of public participation and its constitutional implications. The study analyses four primary Mining Law frameworks, commencing with Law Number 11 of 1967, progressing to Law Number 4 of 2009, including later reform amendments, and culminating with Law Number 2 of 2025, the most recent framework. The primary analytical approach utilises Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation to assess the quality, status, and effect of public participation in the formulation and implementation of mining policy. The study reveals that, notwithstanding an increasing normative recognition of public interaction in post-reform legislation, these changes are mostly procedural rather than substantive. In the early stages of the New Order administration, public participation was almost absent, characterised by rigorous state control and an absence of deliberative possibilities. The post-reform administration instituted mechanisms for public participation; yet, this involvement frequently remains shallow, devoid of any guarantee of meaningful influence on strategic decision-making. The structure of Law Number 2 of 2025 illustrates the tension between the goals of efficient natural resource management, centralisation of authority, and the principle of popular sovereignty. This paper argues that this legal framework poses considerable difficulties in understanding public participation as a constitutional right, particularly concerning the article 33 of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. This study promotes a conceptual restructuring of public involvement as an essential element of democratic natural resource management in Indonesia.