To certain extent, the answer would be yes. Why? See here (it is in Indonesian language, but no worries, we will only discuss one article and I'll provide the translation below). On 9 July 2009, the Indonesian Government issued Law No. 24/2009 on the Flag, the Language, the National Emblem, and the National Anthem. The title says it all, so I don't expect to provide a summary of this Law in my blog. While I don't see the necessity to have this kind of regulation, I can understand that the Government is trying to increase Indonesia's profile, particularly the use of Indonesian language.

Now, onward with the main theme for today, I have some concerns with the application of Article 31 Paragraph (1) of this Law, which states (unofficially translated):

"The Indonesian Language must be used in any memorandum of understanding or agreements which involve state institutions, Indonesian government agencies, Indonesian private institutions, and Indonesian individuals"

This is a provision that I would call as inefficient and unreasonable. Why oblige parties to use Indonesian language in their contracts? There are many reasons for Indonesian companies to use foreign languages (notably English) for their contracts with another Indonesian parties, such as: (i) the relevant Indonesian company has several foreign creditors and therefore most of its contracts were made in English so it would be easier for its creditors to review such contracts (if necessary); or (ii) the relevant Indonesian company usually enters into contracts with foreign parties and therefore its standard contracts were mostly made in English. We need to understand that the costs for drafting Indonesian version of the contracts are not always cheap, so I'm asking once again, why force them to use Indonesian language and penalize them with unnecessary costs? If the parties need to use Indonesian language for the best interest of both parties, they would do so without having to be forced by this Law. Having this kind of provision is indeed an exaggeration.

In addition, forcing Indonesian parties to draft all of their agreements in Indonesian language may cause unnecessary risk (due to its ambiguity), i.e. Indonesian parties with bad faith (of course, supported by their lawyers) may claim that contracts made with another Indonesian parties are invalid and should be annulled by operation of law simply because such contracts were not made in Indonesian language. That would be horrendous! What should be considered as an administrative breach can now be deemed as a major breach of law which could cause a contract to be annulled, all because of an ambiguous provision which shouldn't even exist in the first place.

Of course as a lawyer, I would love this provision since it will create additional job for lawyers, i.e. translating standard English contracts into Indonesian language. Sure it's a boring stuff, but it can generate some nice incomes :).