The lawsuit, brought by four plaintiffs including a chapter of indigenous NGO AMAN and the local branch of Catholic Youth, was filed last month in the Indonesian part of Borneo. It seeks to hold the government accountable for wildfires that have caused widespread school closures and a spike in respiratory illnesses across the region.
None of those named in the lawsuit attended the opening day of court in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, on Wednesday. Judges adjourned the hearing until 21 October.
"We feel sad and regretful about their absence ... But on the other hand, we also understand that perhaps this haze condition caused them to be unable to land in Pontianak," the plaintiffs' lawyer, Glorio Sanen, told reporters. Sanen said the case was "a step to address the problem" of wildfires that flare up annually in Indonesia, often lit as a cheap way to clear land for oil palm planting.
The blazes have reached a crisis point this year due to an unusually intense El Nino weather phenomenon, which has created drier-than-usual conditions and sent smog to Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and the Philippines. Schools in the Malaysian state of Johor, just north of Singapore, were to be closed on Thursday and Friday due to deteriorating air quality.
Yakobus Kumis, a plaintiff representing a Dayak ethnic group, expressed disappointment that government representatives did not attend the hearing, calling it a "way of the central government teaching the people that violating the law is OK." He said the government ignored warning signs before the fires broke out and called for the smoke crisis to be classified as a national disaster.
A similar lawsuit filed last year at a court in South Sumatra was dismissed. Indonesia, the world's largest producer of palm oil, has been accused of not doing enough to stop "slash and burn" land clearances, although the government has vowed a crackdown and deployed the military to fight the fires.
The presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.