Journal of Law and Legal Reform
Vol. 7 No. 2 (2026): April, 2026

Reforming Legal Safeguards for Unpaid Internships in Indonesia’s Creative Industry

Tri Sulistiyono (Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia and Faculty of Law, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia)
Yos Johan Utama (Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia)
Nabitatus Sa’adah (Faculty of Law, Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia)
Moh. Imam Gusthomi (Faculty of Law, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia)
Sabina Syaharani Nurseha (Faculty of Law, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Apr 2026

Abstract

This article examines the imperative for legal reform of the unpaid internship regulation in Indonesia’s creative industry through a normative-juridical methodology grounded in three complementary legal theories: Legal Protection Theory (Philipus M. Hadjon), Justice Theory (John Rawls), and Legal Effectiveness Theory (Soerjono Soekanto). The study identifies a structural conflict of norms between the constitutional guarantee of the right to work under Article 28D (2) of the 1945 Constitution and the minimalistic, unenforceable provisions of Minister of Manpower Regulation No. 6 of 2020 on Domestic Internships. Doctrinal analysis reveals that the existing regulatory architecture fails to provide the preventive and repressive legal protection required by Hadjon’s framework, fails to satisfy the demands of Rawlsian distributive justice, and fails across all five determinant factors of Soekanto’s legal effectiveness theory. These normative deficiencies are further situated within a global comparative framework encompassing legal regimes in the European Union, France, Australia, Japan, and Malaysia, with particular attention to the conditions under which foreign regulatory models may be transplanted into Indonesia’s civil law system. The article concludes with proposed draft amendments to Permenaker No. 6/2020, incorporating a mandatory minimum stipend tied to the Municipal Minimum Wage, capped working hours for interns, compulsory social security enrollment, a graduated administrative and criminal sanctions regime for violations, and the establishment of an independent internship oversight authority modeled on Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

jllr

Publisher

Subject

Law, Crime, Criminology & Criminal Justice

Description

The Journal seeks to disseminate information and views on matters relating to law reform, including developments in case and statute law, as well as proposals for law reform, be they from formal law reform bodies or from other institutions or ...