Indonesia’s Judicial Review Regime in Comparative Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31078/consrev422Keywords:
Constitutional Court, Indonesia, Judicial Review, Legal and Political AuthorityAbstract
This paper provides a comparative perspective on judicial review in Indonesia after the establishment of the Constitutional Court in 2003. It starts by retelling the well-known story of the "transformation of American law" over the first half of the last century. As narrated by Morton Horwitz, that story is about how nineteenth-century industrialisation processes destabilised the premises of "Classical Legal Thought", and then about how the legal realist movement exploited the ensuing crisis to transform the way Americans think about law and its relationship to other social systems. Mining this story for generalisable concepts, the paper argues that the establishment of strong-form judicial review necessarily draws on and, in turn, influences prevailing conceptions of legal and political authority. These conceptions vary along a continuum, in the first case, from public confidence in law's autonomy to a conception of law as deeply immersed in politics, and, in the second case, from a conception of legitimate political authority as contingent on a fairly won democratic mandate to a conception of political authority as residing in the power holder's capacity to promote important social goals, such as national security or economic prosperity. Each of these variables may change independently of the other. In certain situations, however, they may also combine to form a relatively stable judicial review regime – a hegemonic legitimating ideology in which conceptions of legal and political authority lock into and mutually support each other. The fourth section uses this conceptual framework to assess the Indonesian Constitutional Court's approach to its mandate after 2003. Under its first two chief justices, the paper notes, the Court engaged in a concerted effort to build public understanding of its legitimate role in national politics. The Court's abrupt switch between its first Chief Justice, Jimly Asshiddiqie's legalist conception of law's authority and his successor, Mohammad Mahfud's more instrumentalist conception, however, has impeded the consolidation of a determinate judicial review regime. Given the considerable threats still confronting Indonesia's democracy, this situation is worrisome. The Court urgently needs to present a coherent account of its legitimate claim to authority if it is to continue playing an effective role.References
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Shapiro, Martin. Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Siregar, Fritz Edward. "Indonesian Constitutional Politics: 2003–2013." Doctoral dissertation., UNSW Sydney, 2016.
Summers, Robert S. "Pragmatic Instrumentalism in Twentieth Century American Legal Thought – A Synthesis and Critique of our Dominant General Theory about Law and its Use." Cornell Law Review Vol 66, (1981): 861-948.
Tamanaha, Brian Z. Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide: The Role of Politics in Judging. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
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Weber, Max. Economy and Society Vol 1, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.
Atiyah, Patrick S, and Robert S. Summers. Form and Substance in Anglo-American Law: A Comparative Study of Legal Reasoning, Legal Theory, and Legal Institutions. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
Austin, Granville. Working a Democratic Constitution: A History of the Indian Experience. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Bánkuti, Miklós, Gábor Halmai and Kim Lane Scheppele. "Hungary's Illiberal Turn: Disabling the Constitution." Journal of Democracy 23 no. 3 (2012): 138-46.
Baxi, Upendra. The Indian Supreme Court and Politics. Lucknow: Eastern Book Co, 1980.
Bhuwania, Anuj. Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Butt, Simon. The Constitutional Court and Democracy in Indonesia. Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2015.
Butt, Simon and Tim Lindsey. The Constitution of Indonesia: A Contextual Analysis. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2012.
Dressel, Bjoern and Tomoo Inoue. "Megapolitical Cases before the Constitutional Court of Indonesia since 2004: An Empirical Exploration." Unpublished paper presented at the 2nd Indonesian Constitutional Court International Symposium on the "Constitutional Court and Constitutionalism in Political Dynamics," Yogyakarta, 1-3 October 2018.
Fiss, Owen M. "The Right Degree of Independence." In Transition to Democracy in Latin America: The Role of the Judiciary, edited by Irwin P. Stotzky, 55-72. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992.
Foulkes, Albert S. "On the German Free Law School (Freirechtsschule)." Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie /Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy 55, no. 3 (1969): 367-417.
Gibson, James L, and Gregory Caldeira. "Has Legal Realism Damaged the Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court?" Law & Society Review 45, no. 1 (2011): 195-219.
Gillman, Howard. The Constitution Besieged: The Rise and Demise of Lochner Era Police Powers Jurisprudence. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993.
Gordon, Robert W. "Legal Thought and Legal Practice in the Age of American Enterprise, 1870-1920." In Professions and Professional Ideologies in America, edited by Gerald L Geison, 70-82. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
Grechenig, Kristoffel and Martin Gelter. "The Transatlantic Divergence in Legal Thought: American Law and Economics vs. German Doctrinalism." Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 31 no. 1 (2008): 295-360.
Grey, Thomas C. "Langdell's Orthodoxy." University of Pittsburgh Law Review 45 (1983): 1-53.
Hailbronner, Michaela. Traditions and Transformations: The Rise of German Constitutionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.2
Halliday. Terence C. and Lucien Karpik. "Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony: A Theme with Three Variations." In Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony: The Politics of the Legal Complex, edited by Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik and Malcolm Feeley, 3-55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Hendrianto, Stefanus. "The Indonesian Constitutional Court at a Tipping Point." International Journal of Constitutional Law Blog (October 3, 2013), http://www.iconnectblog.com/2013/10/the-indonesian-constitutional-court-ata=tipping-point.
Hendrianto, Stefanus. Law and Politics of Constitutional Courts: Indonesia and the Search for Judicial Heroes. London: Routledge, 2018.
Holmes, Stephen. "Judicial Independence as Ambiguous Reality and Insidious Illusion." In From Liberal Values to Democratic Transition: Essays in Honour of János Kis, edited by Ronald Dworkin, 3-12. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004.
Horowitz, Donald L. Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Horwitz, Morton J. The Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Kennedy, Duncan. "Toward an Historical Understanding of Legal Consciousness: The Case of Classical Legal Thought in America, 1850-1940." Research in Law and Sociology 3 (1980): 3-24.
Kennedy Duncan. A Critique of Adjudication (Fin de Siècle). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Law, David S and Mila Versteeg. "The Evolution and of Global Constitutionalism." California Law Review 99, no. 5 (2011): 1163-1257.
Lev, Daniel S. "Judicial Authority and the Struggle for an Indonesian Rechtsstaat." Law and Society Review 13, no. 1 (Autumn 1978) 37-71.
McCloskey, Robert G. The American Supreme Court. 4th ed revised by Sanford Levinson, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Mietzner, Marcus. "How Jokowi Won and Democracy Survived." Journal of Democracy 25, no. 4 (2014): 111-25.
Mietzner, Marcus. "Fighting Illiberalism with Illiberalism: Islamist Populism and Democratic Deconsolidation in Indonesia." Pacific Affairs 91, no. 2 (2018) 261-82.
Moustafa, Tamir and Tom Ginsburg. "Introduction: The Functions of Courts in Authoritarian Politics." in Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes, edited by Tom Ginsburg and Tamir Moustafa, 1-22. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Nonet, Phillippe and Philp Selznick. Toward Responsive Law: Law & Society in Transition. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001.
Pompe, Sebastiaan. The Indonesian Supreme Court: A Study of Institutional Collapse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2005.
Posner, Richard A. "What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?" Southern California Law Review 63 (1990): 1653-70.
Pound, Roscoe. "Mechanical Jurisprudence." Columbia Law Review 8 (1908): 605-23.
Rajah, Jothie. Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Roux, Theunis. "Transformative Constitutionalism and the Best Interpretation of the South African Constitution: A Distinction without a Difference?" Stellenbosch Law Review 20, no. 2 (2009): 258-85.
Roux, Theunis. "The South African Constitutional Court's Democratic Rights Jurisprudence: A Response to Samuel Issacharoff." Constitutional Court Review 5 (2014): 33-73.
Roux, Theunis. The Politico-Legal Dynamics of Judicial Review: A Comparative Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Roux, Theunis and Fritz Siregar. "Trajectories of Curial Power: The Rise, Fall and Partial Rehabilitation of the Indonesian Constitutional Court." Australian Journal of Asian Law 16, no. 2 Article 2 (2016): 1-21.
Satrio, Abdurrachman. "Constitutional Retrogression in Indonesia under President Joko Widodo's Government: What Can the Constitutional Court Do?" Unpublished paper presented at the 2nd Indonesian Constitutional Court International Symposium on the "Constitutional Court and Constitutionalism in Political Dynamics." Yogyakarta, 1-3 October 2018.
Schauer, Frederick. "Foreword." In William Twining, Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement 2ed, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Shapiro, Martin. Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Siregar, Fritz Edward. "Indonesian Constitutional Politics: 2003–2013." Doctoral dissertation., UNSW Sydney, 2016.
Summers, Robert S. "Pragmatic Instrumentalism in Twentieth Century American Legal Thought – A Synthesis and Critique of our Dominant General Theory about Law and its Use." Cornell Law Review Vol 66, (1981): 861-948.
Tamanaha, Brian Z. Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide: The Role of Politics in Judging. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Trubek, David M. "Complexity and Contradiction in the Legal Order: Balbus and the Challenge of Critical Social Thought about Law/" Law & Society Review 11 (Winter 1977): 529-69.
Tushnet, Mark. Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Constitutional Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Weber, Max. Economy and Society Vol 1, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.
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Roux, T. (2018). Indonesia’s Judicial Review Regime in Comparative Perspective. Constitutional Review, 4(2), 188–221. https://doi.org/10.31078/consrev422
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