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The Constitutional Court last week thought it would suffice to argue for more than 400 pages why the Anti-Pornography Law should remain in force, with no changes at all.

But one of the law’s more prominent critics, GKR Hemas, the wife of the sultan of Yogyakarta and a member of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), thought otherwise. As she sees it, “the court’s ruling does not mean we should no longer make an out issue of it. We must indefatigably continue to seek justice.”

The Javanese royal has a list of complaints, most notably the law’s view of what actually constitutes pornography, which she says leaves the topic open to endless and multiple interpretations. In an article she wrote for a major daily last week, she also expressed concern that the law opened the possibility where women may in fact be “criminalized.”

The court took note of her objections, as well as of the objections of 47 applicants representing a diverse section of society, from youth groups and churches to housewives, arts and cultural figures, women’s activists and legal aid foundations, who had requested a judicial review of the law in February last year. But on Thursday, the court ruled to maintain the controversial law, stating in no uncertain terms that the arguments of the applicants had no legal basis and that the law’s definition of pornography was clear.

Law No. 44/2008 defines pornography as “material made by people in the form of pictures, sketches, illustrations, photos, writings, voices, sounds, motion pictures, animation, cartoons, poems, conversations, body movements and other forms of communication through various mass media or public displays that can arouse sexual desire and/or violate public moral values.”

The panel of judges also made it clear that “something cannot be categorized as pornography if it relates to the arts, literature, tradition, knowledge and sports, as long as it conforms to the right place and time.”

This particular clause should actually allay any fear that the law restricts artists’ freedom of expression or that local cultures may no longer be allowed to maintain their unique identities. For some unfathomable reason, however, protesters have focused on the law’s superficial spirit and are aiming at nothing short of having it annulled altogether.

To be sure, the law has generated little public interest outside some groups in Bali, North Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara, whose time-honored cultures define in their own ways what is morally proper or improper. In Jakarta and Yogyakarta, however, objections to the law follow the norm of protesting against anything that even scantily suggests restrictions on freedom of expression and women’s rights.

All this partly explains why nine years elapsed between the time deliberations of the law began, in 1997, and the issuance of the draft law in 2006. It took another two years before the bill was finally passed by the House of Representatives, in 2008, suggesting both its low priority with the public and the strong ambivalence that most legislators felt for it.

“Bali cannot enforce the law as it does not take into account the sociological and psychological aspects of the Balinese,” Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika said in Denpasar moments after the Constitutional Court handed down its final decision. The governor has won praise among Balinese for his strong words in defense of the island’s culture and its tourism industry. The latter thrives and provides employment to locals thanks in part to a permissiveness that is found nowhere else in the country.

However, Pastika’s blatant refusal to enforce a national law, which he stated in public, was hardly a fine example of good governance or something for future leaders of the island to follow.

In 1998, the public welcomed democracy and everything that came with it, after three decades of autocratic rule. But disillusionment quickly ensued as the public witnessed the ugly side of unbridled freedom, until rules and regulations were put in place to ensure democracy was practiced in ways that respected other’s right to law and order.

The controversial Anti-Pornography Law has its upside. It has sparked a healthy debate and encouraged the public — albeit a limited segment thereof — to engage itself in an esoteric exercise that does justice to their intellect.

Constitutional law expert Refly Harun believes the court wanted to be on the safe side by allowing the law to remain in force “as the public desire to see it annulled is not really strong.” In other words, the public believes that a law on pornography, warts and all, is a legislation whose time has come.

Taufik Darusman is a veteran Jakarta-based journalist.