Protection of Women and Children in the Perspective of Legal Pluralism: A Study in Aceh and West Nusa Tenggara

Child marriage remains a complex issue within Indonesia’s multicultural legal system. The lack of synchronization among state law, religious law, and customary law creates a significant space for legal contestation, particularly in the practices of marriage dispensation and marital validation (isbat nikah). This study aims to analyze the dynamics of legal contestation among these systems using a normative-empirical legal approach through the examination of legal documents, regulations, and critical legal literature. Employing John Griffiths’ theory of legal pluralism, the study reveals that the Indonesian state tends to adopt a form of weak legal pluralism, recognizing religious and customary laws only to the extent that they do not contradict state law. The primary academic contribution of this study lies in its detailed exploration of how local and religious norms influence judicial decisions regarding dispensation and marital validation—an area that has received limited critical scrutiny in previous studies, which largely focused on formal normative analysis. This research also highlights the inadequacy of uniform national legal policies in responding to the diversity of grassroots social norms. Therefore, it advocates for a reformulation of legal approaches that are more participatory and context-sensitive through inclusive dialogue among state authorities, religious leaders, and customary communities. Such an approach is essential to ensuring the fair and sustainable protection of children’s rights within an adaptive legal pluralism framework that reflects Indonesia’s social realities.

Background: The legal exception in the study of legal pluralism revealed in this article is not in the context of procedural law. This study highlighted the use of “exception” term. Legal exception is defined as an exception or not included in one carriage of legal reasoning. Through the judge's court decision No. 089/Pdt.G/2010/PA.GM on the Application for Polygyny Permit. Purpose: This paper aimed to explore and analyze the legal exceptions on plurality legal context of Indonesia related to the issue of hypersexuality and gender justice in polygyny case of Sasaknese Muslim Mariage in Lombok West Nusa Tenggara. Methods: A qualitative normative approach is employed; departing from the legal facts spesifically in Giri Menang Religious Court, the analysis and discussion applyed in this paper are the reasoning, paradigm, approach, and flow of socio-legal studies in law and society issue. Results: The findings indicated that the partiality of the judge's reasoning by ignoring the term legal exception in the context of legal pluralism. The judge's decision on the polygamy permit was not based on real legal rationality, but due to the applicant experienced by hyper sexuality. The odd thing of judge's reasoning only considers State Law and Religion, and ignores the Customary Law of Sasak marriage. While the Indonesian marriage law, there is no law that permits a husband to engage in polygamy based on the hypersexuality or other suffers deseases of husband. However, the law allows a husband to be polygamous on the basis of an incurable disease of the wife. Implication: The serious implication of this study espoused the distortion of the existence of customary law due to the strongest hegemony of state and religious law. Therefore various further studies are needed to reveal the relevance of customary law to positive law in Indonesia. Originality: The novelty presented in this article are the response of religious court judges to the existence of legal plurality in Indonesia, namely State Law, Religious Law, and Customary Law. The court decision emphasized that judges obey only for state and religious law, and ignored for the customary law. Even though the legal plurality of Indonesian society is directly protected by the constitution

<p><em>This article departs from the interlegality of marriage laws in Jambi society today, which discusses sumbong marriages. Sumbong marriage itself is a marriage that is legal according to religion, state, and custom. However, the ability to marry sumbong itself is considered valid by carrying out a customary settlement first, which was initially prohibited by customary law. The prohibition on marriage in Indonesia is contained in Article 8 of Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage and Article 39 of the Compilation of Islamic Law. Departing from this phenomenon, the author tries to examine the writing, which includes the implementation of marriage law in the Jambi community, the legal pluralism of the Jambi community, and the interlegality of customary, religious and state law in the marriage law of the Jambi community. The type of research carried out by the author is field research (Field Research) with qualitative methods. The nature of this research is analytical descriptive research. The approach used by the authors is a sociological empirical approach with interlegality. The author's findings clearly show that legal interactions in this tradition involve interactions between several laws, including religious, state, and customary laws used in sumbong marriage practices. By applying the legal interlegality theory approach, customary law, state law, and religious law become one unit. The concept of interlegality is found in adopting the values contained in the sumbong marriage tradition, whether based on state law, Islamic law, or Jambi customary law. This adoption process is based on the characteristics of the Jambi community's legal identity and its social environment, which is still steeped in customs, and the community also upholds the norms that apply in society and adheres firmly to "adat basandi syarak, syarak basandi kitabullah. "</em></p>

Indonesia recognizes several legal systems i.e., state law, customary law, Islamic law, and international law. Islamic sharia in Aceh is part of legal pluralism in Indonesia. This study aims to discuss the application of Islamic sharia from the perspective of legal pluralism. This normative legal study employed a legal pluralism theory analysis. Legal pluralism is a theory that views law not only as positive or written law made by the state but also as a recognition of the legal reality that exists in a pluralistic society. The study collected data by means of a literature review. Findings revealed that Islamic sharia in Aceh as part of the recognition of the concept of legal pluralism has been implemented well in the context of state law, custom, and Islamic law. The state has provided juridical legitimacy through laws in the context of legal substance and judicial institutions or sharia courts. Likewise, revitalization has also occurred in traditional institutions in terms of customary law and customary justice. The argument emphasized in this study is that Islamic sharia in the context of legal pluralism has succeeded in manifesting legal harmonization between the state, custom, and Islamic law

This paper aims to examine the juridical basis for the application of Acehnese customary law, the mediation mechanism of Aceh Tamiang customary law in resolving minor disputes. The study of this paper used empirical research methods, using the theory of legal pluralism. Data were collected by means of in-depth interview and document study. Interviews were conducted with customary stakeholders, while the documents analysed were news of peace events in Aceh Tamiang. The findings reveal that the juridical basis for resolving minor disputes is based on the Law, the Qanun, and the Joint Decree between the Governor, the Aceh Regional Police Chief, and the Chair of the Aceh Customary Council (Majelis Adat Aceh). In Aceh Tamiang, the customary law mediation mechanism in gampong (village) and mukim (township) customary justice is generally carried out by reporting, requiring the presence of the parties to the dispute as well as the witnesses, and being open to the public. However, exception occurs for special disputes, in which according to custom and propriety must not be open to the public, and there is no charge whatsoever. Among the minor disputes that have been successfully resolved through gampong customary courts are domestic violence, inheritance disputes, land ownership, the construction of Telkomsel towers, and traffic accidents. The resolution of minor disputes in Aceh Tamiang from the perspective of legal pluralism has been carried out harmoniously and correlates between state law, customary law, and Islamic law. State law provides an opportunity for customary law to resolve minor disputes, and if it is not successful, then state law will take over. Further, dispute resolution in customary law is also in accordance with the values of Islamic law, which also prioritizes peace or al-sulh. This corresponds to the Acehnese proverb that states “adat ngen hukom lage zat ngen sifeut” which means the relationship between customary law and Islamic law is like a substance with its inseparable properties.

Customary Law and the Nationalist Project in Spain and Peru

The purpose of this research is to discover the existence of autonomy of Desa Pakraman in legal pluralism perspective. Related with that purpose, there are two issues that will be discussed, first, how does the existence of the autonomy of Desa Pakraman in Indonesia’s legal system?,Second, how does the existence of the autonomy of Desa Pakraman in legal pluralism perspective?. The research method is normative legal research using statue approach, concept approach and analytical approach and law analysis by using legal interpretation. Based on the problems, the results of discussion are : first, the existence of the autonomy of Desa Pakraman within the Indonesia’s legal system has regulated in the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, national and local Regulations. In the Constitution, specifically Article 18 B of paragraph (2), declare that the states recognizes Desa Pakraman and their traditional rights. In regulation of Law No.5 of 1960 concerning basic Agrarian Law (UUPA), regulation of Human Rights, and regulation of Desa (Village) are clearly recognize Desa Pakraman as traditional institution has traditional rights, one of it is the autonomy of Desa Pakraman. At the local regulation, autonomy Desa Pakraman has regulated in Local Regulation about Desa Pakraman. Second, that existence of autonomy Desa Pakraman in perspective legal pluralism is that the existence autonomy Desa Pakraman is a weak legal pluralism. In perspective weak legal pluralism the state law as a superior and the customary law as an inferior, its position in the hierarchy under State law. As a theory, the semi-autonomous social field from Sally Falk Moore perspectives that Desa Pakraman is semi-autonomous. Desa Pakraman has capacity to hold their village based on the customary law and outomaticly Desa Pakraman to be in framework of state law.

This paper comprehensively examines the system of customary law (hukum adat) in Indonesia and the influence of religion on the formation, development, and implementation of the national legal system. Customary law, as the indigenous legal system of the Indonesian people, has existed long before the arrival of colonial influences and major world religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Historically, hukum adat not only served as a social guideline but also as a reflection of the nation’s moral, spiritual, and cultural values. Its evolution has undergone significant transformations—from the Hindu–Buddhist kingdoms that marked the early integration of religious and customary norms, to the Islamic kingdoms that produced a syncretic blend of syariah and customary law, and finally, to the Dutch colonial period which institutionalized legal pluralism through the Western legal system. Following Indonesia’s independence, a major challenge arose in unifying the various legal systems into a coherent national legal framework grounded in the values of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. Religion, as a source of ethical and moral principles, has exerted a profound influence on the substance and philosophy of Indonesian law. Islamic law, for instance, has significantly shaped family law, civil law, and Islamic economic law, while other religions have also contributed to the moral and philosophical dimensions of national law. In the modern era, globalization and legal modernization pose new challenges to maintaining the relevance of both customary and religious law amidst demands for universal justice and efficiency. This study aims to analyze the historical roots, interrelations, and harmonization potential between customary law, religious law, and the national legal system. Using a historical-philosophical and normative approach, it seeks to formulate an ideal concept for developing a national legal system that remains rooted in Indonesia’s cultural identity. The findings indicate that the integration of customary and religious law into the national legal framework is not merely a juridical process but also a cultural and philosophical one. Therefore, the construction of national law must always be grounded in spirituality, local wisdom, and social justice as embodied in Pancasila as the ultimate source of all Indonesian law

Bali, as a province with strong roots in local cultural traditions and significant economic importance for Indonesia, is striving to balance modernity and tradition, economics, especially mass tourism, and cultural identity. This is why Universitas Warmadewa, one of the largest Balinese universities, chooses the theme ‘Local Wisdom and Business Law’ for its international conferences each year.As a non-Indonesian legal scholar, this theme presents two challenges for me. Firstly, I am not an expert in tourism economics and can only approach the topic from a traditional market law perspective, theoretically. Secondly, the terms used in Indonesian legal discussions may seem vague and unclear from a German perspective, as the legal discussion in Indonesia integrates traditional legal phenomena pragmatically into the applicable legal system. This may also be historically conditioned because since independence Indonesia has to handle a legal pluralism in law, which also finds its cause in the legacy of the colonial era.When speaking on the legal perspective of ‘local wisdom’, several questions are unclear to me:What exactly is local wisdom and how can it be defined?Where does it fit into the Indonesian legal system?What role can local wisdom play in contemporary law?Local wisdom may be understood as part of traditional customary law or Adat, at least in terms of its influence on legal issues, as the conference theme suggests. The terminology around ‘customary law’, ‘Adat’, ‘indigenous law’, or ‘living law’ is still a problematic issue in Indonesian scientific discussion and should only be briefly mentioned in this presentation. The term ‘Adat law’ was originally not used in Indonesian society and was first systematically used by the Dutch. Van Vollenhoven, considered the ‘father of Indonesian Adat law’ by Indonesian scholars, defined Adat law as law that is not based on codified legal rules from the legislator. This definition is still used by contemporary Indonesian scholars. Adat law in this sense contains sanctions, making the character of ‘law’. It was characterized by Van Vollenhoven as dynamic and flexible folk law, which combines the term with the often-used term of ‘living law’. There are numerous discussions in Indonesian literature about Indonesian customary law, its functions, and significance, but the terminology has not been clearly defined and the role of religious law is also subject to numerous publications.Therefore, having read various contributions on the topic, I am left confused because some of them discuss the existence of legal principles of living customary law and describe them as “national Indonesian principles,” which can replace parts of the post-colonial Indonesian law, but they do not clearly identify these principles. The topic seems to be of almost patriotic importance to Indonesia, making it particularly difficult for foreign scholars to approach the subject in presentations before Indonesian colleagues. My contribution should be seen in light of this difficulty, as a first observation of the phenomenon from a foreign perspective.The term Adat is already difficult to comprehend, and this is even more true for the term “local wisdom” in a legal context. So, what is the “Local Wisdom” that I am asked to talk about? The Terms of Reference of our conference describe the meaning of “local wisdom” mainly as the clash of market actors in local Balinese tourism that can lead to conflicts, which the law should resolve. These conflicts are said to occur because local communities and institutions, based on a kind of traditionally grown trust, seek to build and maintain their business relationships in the tourism industry. This trust, which one could call “traditional good faith,” meets the need to regulate contractual arrangements more formally in terms of contract law (“more official...instead of just relying on promises or good faith”).In this sense, local wisdom is an aspect of good faith. Based on this understanding of the term, I have no systematic issues with the term “local wisdom.” However, it should be noted that good faith and contract, as a predictable shaping of legal relationships between market actors, should not be seen as opposites. It is possible and necessary to resolve disruptions in contractual relationships in light of good faith and, if necessary, adapt contractual regulations. Here, “local wisdom” should not be understood as a unique source of good faith, but as a general aspect that can influence the expectations of the contracting parties and their trust in shaping the law. This raises the question of which factors should be taken into account by the non-local contracting party in good faith, and which should not. It is a question of the concrete assessment of the structure of interests and the balance of the contract, how to allocate risk and assign external aspects to the contracting parties and which aspects should be considered subsequently.This is a theoretical matter, and it is unlikely to play a significant role in practice since local market actors and communities have the freedom, within the framework of private autonomy, to incorporate their traditional interests into the contract negotiations. This allows for traditional interests to participate in the “equivalence justice” of the contract. However, if the traditional interests of the local community result in unacceptable consequences for the contract’s execution, the question of whether these reasons can lead to a change in the contract’s basis may arise. In civil law systems, the clausula rebus sic stantibus is regulated as a limitation of the pacta sunt servanda principle and falls under the principle of good faith (bona fides). If the invocation of “local wisdom” by one party leads to the other party having to agree to an adjustment, it would have to be examined.I would like to give you an example of this, which seems credible even if no prove about the issue can be delivered due to the ‘popular’ source: A person without Indonesian citizenship acquired the right to use a plot of land with a house in Bali ten years ago. Since foreigners cannot acquire land ownership in Indonesia themselves, the foreigner had agreed on a legal arrangement with an Indonesian citizen resident in Bali, in which the Indonesian acquired ownership (hak milik) of the land with the foreigner’s money and agreed on right to use for the foreign partner. After ten years, the foreigner wanted to sell the property again to move to his country of origin. The agreement with the Indonesian partner stipulated that the Indonesian partner must agree to the sale of the plot on the wish of the foreign partner and would receive 10% of the sale amount in the event of a sale. In the case described, however, the Indonesian partner seems to have refused to sell the property on the agreed terms. He was not satisfied with the 10% share and demanded a 70% share instead. As justification for this, he argued that the contract terms should be changed because he had spiritually enhanced the property over the years through certain religious rituals and this required a revaluation of his shareholding.It is not known whether the case was heard in an Indonesian court and how it was finally settled. Assuming the case had occurred as described, from the perspective of Indonesian civil law, it is clear that no change in the business basis of the contract occurred as a result of the Indonesian partner’s spiritual acts, which can lead to an adjustment of the agreement between him and the foreign contractual partner. Just as local communities depend on their interests in cultural identity being taken into account even in legal relations with partners coming from outside, foreign investors must be able to rely on certain standards of contractual obligation. The principle of good faith would be grotesquely overstretched if local contracting partners could use fuzzy notions of ‘local wisdom’ to make contractual arrangements more flexible in their favour.Another example of the clash between traditional legal customs and supra-regional legal ideas in highly traditional markets with supra-regional economic importance, such as Bali, is the handling of legal disputes and methods of dispute resolution. The trust of traditional communities in supra-legal ties of interest in business relationships, as mentioned in the Terms of Reference to this Conference, meets a systemic trust in formal contractual regulations of non-local actors. The reference points of trust of the respective groups of market actors thus differ. This also affects dispute resolution. According to Sulastriyono, the voluntary character of traditional customary law has the advantage over civil law methods of litigation and dispute resolution of a ‘win-win’ solution, which leads to greater acceptance of the solution by the parties to the conflict. In theory, this is undeniable. However, it is questionable whether this acceptance can also be achieved among contract participants who do not originate from the respective culture, because the existence of sufficient advantages for a party may well depend on the integration of the party in the respective local society. Moreover, the indisputable advantages of consensual dispute resolution can also be well integrated in state procedural law via mediation mechanisms.Cases such as the one outlined one above would in principle be likely to erode the confidence of foreign investors in Indonesian law in general if courts do not rule clearly and draw clear boundaries here. The example seems to be a particularly extreme case, but it shows how important it is to clearly determine the meaning and possible role of terms such as ‘local wisdom’ and ‘tradition’ for use in law. Culturally related aspects are prone to serve as a tool for discrimination against individuals and companies that do not belong to the respective cultural environment. The difficulty, for example, of establishing an intellectual property right on cultural heritage follows not only from the contrast between individual subjective rights and collective subjective rights. It follows above all from the problem of determining the collective rights holders who are to benefit from ‘their’ cultural heritage. Who is a member of a certain culture? Is there a generational link or does it depend on the integration of the individual into his or her living environment? If the legal system does not want to fall back to abstruse considerations of ‘blood identity’, what remains is the assignment of such claims to territorial authorities or the state itself, whose task it is to protect cultural diversity on its territory. This is the path that the Indonesian legislature had taken in Art 38 Law No 28/2014 on copyright law.The misuse of cultural aspects carried into the application of law is also visible in another aspect: In another paper I have pointed out the problem that the concept of traditional customary law in Indonesian law and the position of Adat law in the hierarchy of norms seems in need of clarification. Shidarta notes that there is no sufficient clarity about the relationship between Adat law and state law and thus no consistent system of Indonesian law as a whole. Accordingly, the maturation of an independent Indonesian legal system suffers to this day from the internal conflict with the colonial legacy of existing state law based on Dutch civil law and the lack of a consistent overarching pluralistic concept of law. This is seen by Shidarta as a major reason why the systematic positions of customary law, Islamic law and western law within national law are not clearly defined and why a clear hierarchical determination of the various sources of law in relation to national law is lacking. The doubts about the systematic location and certainly also the failure to establish the principles of traditional customary law as original Indonesian law after the attainment of independence instead of the sources of law inherited from the colonial period are probably due - in addition to the idea of the state founders of an Indonesian unitary state (‘eenheidstaat’) - above all to the disagreement about the concept of customary law, which is formally understood in the sense of a binding source of law defined during the colonial period, or as post-colonial Adat law in the sense of traditional customary rights of various Indonesian ethnic groups either with a binding character or as norms of social order based on voluntariness. In this respect, too, different definitions of the term can be found in the literature:There is thus generally a more philosophical recognition of the importance of traditional customary law in the sense that customary law reflects the actual sense of law of the people and the Indonesian people as a nation. The latter statement seems problematic to me because the statement only applies with regard to the significance of customary law as a source of law, but not to the content of the individual customary laws of the various ethnic groups, in which different legal customs apply in each case. It therefore seems questionable to me whether Adat law can be understood in the sense of an alternative to Indonesian state law. In my opinion, Adat as a source of concrete legal norms has a supplementary development perspective in the communal area. Here it can certainly have an influence on economic life in the regions if it is applied consistently and transparently, and its importance would grow especially if the autonomy of municipal territorial units were strengthened, and a strong federalism were developed. However, a scientific inventory of norms and principles of local customary law is then required, and a clear formulation of such norms is needed, because it must be ruled out that the invocation of undefined, non-transparent or arbitrarily formulated Adat rules unduly restricts the freedom of market actors and are used as protectionist instruments in the provinces.In this sense, I believe that the postulate that Indonesian law must simply recognise Adat law as it has grown and as it is applied alive within the Indonesian local societies falls short, because the compatibility of social rules based on voluntariness and constantly changing with the overall legal system based on the rule of law is at least debatable. In other words: either one renounces the legal certainty and predictability of legal norms in the area of traditional customary law. This could then constitute a breach of the constitutionally enshrined principle of the Rule of Law. Or one formulates clear norms based on traditional legal principles, which have the character of binding legal norms and applies them in the sense of subsidiarity in the local environment with priority over central state law in certain predefined aspects. Then the rules of the hierarchy of norms must be correspondingly clear. However, the question of the hierarchy of norms then no longer presents itself as a problem of the nature of Adat or customary law because the latter would have lost its character as actual customary law. The advocates of a strong recognition of Adat by state law will, however, reject this path because they see the advantage of traditional customary law over state law precisely in its flexibility and ability to change. This flexibility would no longer be readily available through an integration of traditional principles into a local classical law in the sense of imperative norms.A clear hierarchy of norms defined by constitutional law seems indispensable, because such local customary law cannot displace state law without further ado, but only if the principle of subsidiarity and the better regulation of local circumstances by local law indicates otherwise. This would also be in line with the philosophical assessment of local customary law as the law that best captures the living conditions of the people in its cultural area of application. The importance of the principle of subsidiarity should generally be given more attention in the discussion on legal pluralism in Indonesia. This can not only ensure greater recognition of traditional customary law, but also enable the transparency necessary for the predictability of the law.Insofar as Adat is to be understood as the source of ‘abstract normative’ aspects, as certain common Indonesian legal values and principles in the sense of a ‘pan-Indonesian’ legal order and, as such, is to find its way into an independent state Indonesian civil law, legal scholarship in Indonesia will also have to identify and clearly define these principles. In doing so, it will be necessary to determine which principles of traditional customary law in the various regions of the archipelago are suitable as overarching legal principles, so that they can possibly have an identity-forming effect in a national private law. This difficult process might lead to reform of the Indonesian Civil Law which meets the special requirements of a socially and culturally integrated legal system.Indonesia as a state with a unified internal market needs a cross-cultural private law and commercial law. Consideration of the interests of local communities and traditions is of importance in a multicultural state. The Indonesian constitution therefore emphasises the specifics of traditional rights and thus guarantees Adat its own status in the legal system. However, there seems to be a lack of a clear hierarchy of norms in the legal system and a clear definition of the nature of Adat. A hint of a certain hierarchy between Adat and state law is indeed found in agricultural law (Art. 5 Law No. 5/1960 on the Basic Regulations of Agrarian Principles) and in forestry law (Law No. 41/1999 on Forestry). Adat is recognised here but must harmonise with state law. It is therefore likely to be in a relationship of subsidiarity to state law. The fundamental assertion of the primacy of state law over other co-existing legal systems is also in line with the view of Indonesian legal scholars such as Sunaryati Hartono. Referring to Griffiths’ formulation of “weak legal pluralism”, where co-existing legal systems are subordinated to a dominant formalistic national law, it can be stated that the Indonesian legal system follows this model.In my opinion, the integration of traditional customary law into the legal system should not be done as a mere tolerance of state law towards deviating regulations of facts in certain regions. From my perspective as a foreign observer, this seems to lead to significant problems for the development of the Indonesian economy and for investment. In particular, this seems to me to be the case for Bali. Local Wisdom can be incorporated into the contractual relations of the parties within the framework of private autonomous arrangements. A ‘creative’ qualification of protectionist measures against outside market actors or the justification of the failure to sanction breaches of contract or violations of law against outsiders as ‘Adat’ or ‘protection of local traditions’ should be consistently avoided.Incidentally, it seems to me that in contract law there is no real opposition between state law and traditional customary law. Either the parties trust each other, in which case state law does not prevent an agreement based on good faith. Or they do not, in which case only state contract law can lead to proper solutions. The same applies to traditional dispute resolution methods, to which the parties to the conflict can easily submit. In contrast, the integration of customary law as independent Indonesian legal principles or as legal norms at the local or municipal level into Indonesian law would require considerable academic effort. For this, the principles concerned would have to be clearly identified, systematised, and formulated to be able to substantiate a claim to validity beyond the respective local communities. The mere reference to historically evolved convictions of local communities is too vague. The term ‘local wisdom’ seems to me to be problematic in this sense to accurately describe the question of the collision of traditional customs and expectations of outside market actors, especially since it is already conceptually positively evaluative. Finally, it should not be forgotten, that the continental European codifications are culturally neutral and in big parts based on the Roman law. Roman law itself was not developed under the cultural framework of northern and middle European regions, however it served well as source for the modern European codifications. These codifications are working fine until these days in different nations without obvious incompatibilities with local traditions. The amount of a ‘Volksgeist’ after the idea of Friedrich Carl von Savigny within the Private Law does not play a big role in the contemporary discussion as law should be seen in a pragmatic way as a viable tool to organize the modern society. Indonesia is an important economically emerging nation. As such it might be a good idea to keep an internationally compatible private law, which might be carefully adapted to certain peculiarities of the Indonesian society. The use of general clauses as entrance doors for local legal convictions seems to be a good way for that and a clearly defined legal hierarchy with a constitutionally based legal subsidiarity principle seems important. In contrast, the foundation of modern law on nationalistic, local, or indigenous traditional customs should only be done with extreme caution, if at all. The contemporary discussion on the role of Adat in Indonesian law shows the great difficulty of determining viable legal rules that can enter a future reformed Indonesian private law as ‘originally Indonesian’. The criticism against Von Savigny’s ‘Volksgeist’ idea also applies here: Defining who the ‘people’ are and what constitutes their common identity is already hardly rationally possible in a non-multi-ethnic state, even more in a multi-ethnic state. National identity-forming circumstances are hardly suitable as common principles for pluralistic societies.

In Adjudication in Religious Family Laws: Cultural Accommodation, Legal Pluralism, and Gender Equality in India, Gopika Solanki provides a convincing defence of the Indian policy of legal pluralism for governing marriage and divorce among Hindus and Muslims. The author contends that, by ‘‘split[ing] its adjudicative authority with social actors and organizations in the regulation of marriage and divorce among a sector of religious and caste group and the other actors’’ (p. 10), the Indian state simultaneously avoids leaning towards legal centralism and an essentialist version of legal pluralism. Solanki supports this claim with reference to state laws, societal laws, legal actors, and their interactions in formal and informal legal arenas. This ethnographically rich text begins by describing and explaining, a model of ‘shared adjudication’ (p. 10). The author contends that this model is unique to India. Founded on values of both state and customary law, this model focuses on state-society interactions and their relation to resolving conflicts in family, marriage and divorce. Although the state ‘‘does not relinquish its authority to govern the family’’ (p. 11), it shares the adjudicative authority with societal actors and institutions in order to avoid legal centralism. Similarly, even though the state recognizes both religious and customary laws—and provides an option to its citizen to opt out of religious laws—it avoids complete legal pluralism by expressively not establishing religious and customary courts and by enacting secular law to govern interreligious marriages. In Chapter 2, Solanki explains, how the dual functions of the shared adjudication model overcomes the classic state versus society/legal versus illegal dualism by opening up the possibility to make, unmake, or reform the fixed construction of religious memberships in diverse legal sites.

Legal pluralism involves the proposition that more than one manifestation of law exists in many social arenas. The legal pluralist paradigm is propagating across academic fields. In the 1970s, jurists and legal anthropologists working in colonial and post-colonial societies wrote about the coexistence of state law in various relationships with customary law, religious law, and indigenous law. The paradigm was taken in a different direction in the 1980s when a group of sociologically oriented jurists argued pervasive legal pluralism exists in all societies, now identifying law in terms of institutionalized rule systems and concrete patterns of normative ordering. An overview at the close of the decade declared, ‘Legal pluralism is a central theme in the reconceptualization of the law/society relation.’ Thereafter the notion continued to travel. In the past decade, ‘legal pluralism has become a standard fare in international and comparative law circles.’ Jurisprudence is the latest field to take up legal pluralism. In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence (2017), edited by Nicole Roughan and Andrew Halpin, is a collection of essays on the topic by a stellar cast of jurisprudents. A fresh breeze is sweeping through legal theory, shaking old verities, opening new vistas. The ‘exclusive concentration on state law was, it now turns out, never justified, and is even less justified today,’ Joseph Raz declared in this volume. Bringing theoretical attention to bear on multiple forms of law unsettles everything. ‘Instead of law we have laws, instead of methodology we have methodologies, and even plurality itself is observed and analyzed pluralistically,’ write Roughan and Halpin. The publication of In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence provides an occasion to convey key insights offered by legal pluralism and to expose confusions that threaten to impede fruitful engagement by jurisprudents. There are two major sources of confusion. First, legal pluralism encompasses three distinct clusters of ideas, blurred together by the same label and repeated narratives that portray them as continuous, though the differences are substantial. I label them manifest legal pluralism, sociological legal pluralism, and supranational legal pluralism. Second, analyses of legal pluralism have been dominated by theoretical groundwork articulated in ‘What is Legal Pluralism?’ by John Griffiths; though he later repudiated his core position owing to insurmountable conceptual flaws, it continues to shape and distort the discussion. Unpacking these sources of confusion will facilitate the jurisprudential analysis of legal pluralism. The topics covered in this essay are: Why Pursue Pluralism Jurisprudence?; Manifest Legal Pluralism; Sociological Legal Pluralism; Supranational Legal Pluralism; Promise and Conundrums of Pluralist Jurisprudence.

This article explores the position of customary law before state law and Catholic religious law regarding marriage in Mangggarai, Flores, Indonesia. This study applied a critical analytic approach. This study found that the legal position of Manggarai adat concerning marriage is weaker and tends to be marginalized. It happened because state law explicitly Law No. 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage merely accepting the legality of marriage based on religious law and not customary law. Meanwhile, religious law, in this case, Catholicism, does not provide space for customary law in matters of marital legality. As a result, many married couples who have been bound their marriage according to customary law experienced injustice as their marriage was considered illegitimate according to religious and state law. However, this research found many positive contributions of customary law to the process, legality, and integrity of marriage. Therefore, this study recommends that the Indonesian Marriage Law and Catholic Religious Law need to accommodate customary law in marriage, taking into account human rights and justice principles. Both laws need to be revised so that they can place local customary law in an equal position.

Although numerous studies have examined the practice of child marriage in Indonesia, few have analyzed this phenomenon from the perspective of legal pluralism, which encompasses state law, customary law, and religious law. This study aims to analyze child marriage within the context of legal pluralism in Indonesia, focusing on the coexistence of state, customary, and religious norms regulating marriage and their influence on child protection policies. The study employs a qualitative approach with a literature review design and thematic analysis to achieve this objective, integrating the theories of maslahah mursalah, social control, and legal pluralism. Through this analysis, the study explores how legal regulations governing the minimum age of marriage often conflict with prevailing social and religious norms, and how practices such as unregistered marriage (nikah sirri) and marriage dispensations continue despite formal regulations. The findings suggest that, although legal frameworks exist, their implementation is still constrained by strong social and cultural norms. Therefore, a holistic policy approach is required, involving social education and community empowerment to reshape perceptions of child marriage and strengthen law enforcement. This study contributes to the understanding of legal pluralism in child marriage and provides recommendations for more effective and contextually appropriate child protection policies. Keywords: Islamic Law, Minimum Marriage Age, Plural Legal System

This article deals with the interactions among the customary, religious, and state laws to address property sharing upon marriage dissolution among the Oromo in Jimma, Ethiopia. Primary data were collected from the field through key informant interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs), and case studies. All the informants were purposively selected from local mediators, relevant government offices, divorcees, and judges. The article indicates the coexistence and interactions among the state, customary, and religious justice systems, while the latter two are points of entry to obstruct the rights of women to share common property upon marriage dissolution. The central argument of the paper is that legal equality alone cannot ensure women’s property rights in the context of legal pluralism, where religious and customary laws hamper the functioning of the statutory laws governing women’s everyday lives. The article shows that the prevailing patriarchal system accommodates and promotes unequal gender norms in the study area. Yet, the state law is predominant over the religious and customary laws in ending marriages with divorce. The pro-gender equality stance of the state law on the division of property upon marriage dissolution also results in an increasing number of women presenting their cases to the formal court.

The use of concepts of Islamic law, customary law and civil law in Aceh in sale and purchase agreements is still used. The process of consent and consent is carried out by the people of Aceh with the belief that the concept of buying and selling is legal under state law as well as legal under religious law. In reality on the ground the people of Aceh are predominantly Muslim and rich in culture, but in buying and selling transactions of land and house objects they still combine these three legal concepts. The concept of Islamic law and customary law is in accordance with the form of autonomy given especially in the field of religion and custom, so the opportunity to produce legal products such as Qanuns that regulate mua'malah is widely practiced in the midst of Acehnese society. The value system embodied in the concepts of Islamic law and customary law has a great opportunity to produce legal products in the form of Qanuns by the provincial, district and city governments within the jurisdiction of the province of Aceh. The formation of qanuns in the field of buying and selling must also be colored by the three legal concepts that already exist in Acehnese society. So the formation of Qanun accommodates all legal concepts that live in Aceh both Islamic law, customary law and civil law.