Between Control and Appeasement

Abstract

Indonesia's Constitutional Court has become an important site for public debate about the scope of religious freedom in Indonesia and the extent to which religious law particularly Islamic law should influence national law. In the Polygamy case and the Religious Courts case, the applicants both male Muslims argued, in essence, that Islam required them to follow Islamic law and that the religion-related rights in the Constitution required the state to allow them to follow Islamic law and perhaps even enforce Islamic law for Muslims. The Blasphemy Law case, however, is clearly the most important of the Constitutional Court's decisions on religion-related constitutional rights. The reforms established a Constitutional Court with several functions, including ensuring that national laws comply with constitutional rights. The Court genuinely considered that the Wedlock case had little, if anything, to do with Islamic law, which might also explain why it decided not to hear from Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) during the case.