This study examines the constitutionality of Indonesia’s Anti-Blasphemy Law, which has been challenged unsuccessfully at the Constitutional Court on three occasions, in 2009, 2012, and 2018. While ...the Court has acknowledged the law’s provisions are open to multiple interpretations, it insists on maintaining the law as it is, on the grounds that the right to religious expression is not absolute, as freedom and rights are restricted under Article 28J of the 1945 Constitution. The Court believes that canceling the law would create a dangerous legal vacuum. The ambiguity of the Court’s decisions on the constitutionality of the Anti-Blasphemy Law is illustrated in recent blasphemy cases that have not been explored in previous studies. This study uses a doctrinal legal approach to examine why the Anti-Blasphemy Law is flawed and to analyze to what extent the ‘particular constitutionalism’ approach influenced the Court’s decisions when declaring the constitutionality of the law. As such, the Court’s misinterpretation of the core principles of the competing rights – the right to religious freedom and the right to freedom of expression – and its standard limitation, have been ignored. The findings of this study show that in dealing with the Anti-Blasphemy Law, the Court has a narrow and limited recognition of human rights law. The Court’s fear of revoking the Anti-Blasphemy Law is based only on assumptions and is less supported by facts. The Court has failed to realize that the implementation of the flawed Anti-Blasphemy Law in various cases has triggered public disorder, with people taking justice into their own hands.
Debates on the universality of human rights and cultural relativism seem to be eternal and will continue to exist as societal dynamics bring different views, concepts, and understandings of human ...rights and culture. However, it cannot be denied that modern international human rights law which is currently being referred to and adopted by the international community, still creates gaps in the protection of human rights. Meanwhile, the development of cultural relativism in the 20th century is quite successful in bridging the gap between the two and contributing positively to the implementation of international human rights law at the domestic level. Nonetheless, the cultural relativism approach presents critiques and challenges. By using various secondary resources, this paper begins with the concept of, debates between, and challenges of cultural relativism and universality of human rights. The paper indicates that the contribution of cultural relativism can be seen from building tolerance and protection of communal rights, the rights of marginal groups, and the optimization of domestic law when dealing with some competing’s rights. This is a good opportunity to reduce discriminatory actions against marginalized groups for maintaining tolerance and harmony in a plural society. The effectiveness of the application of "margin appreciation" in Europe should be the best practice to actualize "Asian values" or "African values" in formulating the concepts of "public morality" or "public order" clearly and precisely. The cultural relativism approach may not be used by a government to justify any human rights violation. Both of these are important considerations for Indonesia because of its ambiguous attitude in placing these two theories appropriately and purposefully.
Protection of children's rights in conflict with the law (ABH) is a state obligation. The protection aims to ensure the best interests of the child and to prevent discrimination. As stated in Article ...19 of Law Number 11 of 2012, one of the rights is that law enforcement institutions are not allowed to publish the identities of ABH, either in print/ electronic media. However, their identities are still revealed in various Decisions of children's cases. Particularly, their identity is published on the Site of the Supreme Court's Ruling Directory. The purpose of this study is to find out why the Supreme Court Decision Directory Site does not keep the identity of ABH a secret and what are the implications. This research used a socio-legal approach. The results of the study show the management team did not understand their main tasks and rules of protecting the identity of ABH, inconsistency in checking copies of court decisions, ineffective monitoring, and only a handful of people reported the case so this situation is considered normal. The implications of the children’s identity disclosure have affected the rights of children, families, and applicable rules that do not provide legal certainty.
Indonesia is being rocked by a pandemic that has also spread to various countries, namely as Covid-19. Symptoms caused by this virus vary, such as flu, shortness of breath, or infections similar to ...SARS and MERS. The community is also always emphasized to adapt to new habits in the form of implementing 3M, namely wearing masks, maintaining distance and washing hands with soap. In its development, the government has facilitated the public to carry out free COVID-19 vaccinations provided in each area of residence, but there are individuals who commit violations in the form of distributing unlicensed vaccines so that this makes it increasingly difficult for the government to discipline the implementers of the covid vaccine. -19 during the state of emergency. Then suggestions that can be given to the government in addition to government policies that must be responsive also need to emphasize the performance of vaccine implementing officers so that it does not happen outside the government's control during this emergency condition, not only that the government also needs to take firm action against elements who are stubborn by producing, distribute and distribute counterfeit vaccines.
Abstrak
Indonesia sedang diguncang oleh pandemi yang juga telah menyebar ke berbagai negara yaitu Covid-19. Gejala yang ditimbulkan oleh virus ini bermacam-macam seperti flu, sesak nafas, atau infeksi yang serupa dengan SARS dan MERS. masyarakat juga selalu ditekankan untuk beradaptasi dengan kebiasaan baru berupa menerapkan 3M yaitu Memakai masker, Menjaga jarak dan Mencuci tangan dengan sabun. Dalam perkembangannya, pemerintah telah memfasilitasi masyarakat untuk melakukan vaksinasi covid-19 secara gratis yang disediakan pada tiap-tiap daerah tempat tinggal, namun terdapat oknum-oknum yang melakukan pelanggaran berupa mendistribusikan vaksin yang tidak berizin sehingga ini membuat pemerintah semakin sulit mendisiplinkan oknum pelaksana vaksin covid-19 di masa keadaan negara sedang darurat. Kemudian saran yang dapat diberikan kepada pemerintah selain kebijakan pemerintah yang harus tanggap juga perlu mempertegas kinerja petugas pelaksanan vaksin agar tidak terjadi diluar kendali pemerintah di masa kondisi darurat ini, tidak hanya sampai disitu pemerintah juga perlu menindak tegas para oknum-oknum yang membandel dengan memproduksi, mengedar dan mendistribusikan vaksin tidak berijin.
International human rights law faces various critiques among scholars such as Mutua and Posner. Mutua claims that international human rights law fails to accommodate cultural values, while Posner ...demands about its effectivity. Referring to Langford, this paper uses critical analytic approach to evaluate Posner’s critique and Mutua’s main thoughts. Langford counter critiques of Mutua and Posner are significant to mediate the discourses by providing current evidence. While opposing Posner and Mutua’s critiques of international human rights law, this paper supports Langford’s counter critiques because of three reasons. First, Langford's comprehension can ensure that IHRL not only accommodates individual rights but also communal rights. Second, Langford’s recent study indicates the effectiveness of international human rights law. Third, Langford develops a new optimism that social rights are justiciable although the strategic idea of integrating human rights with development still needs to be elaborated further. Therefore, it is significant to follow Langford’s suggestion to optimizing the international human rights law as the most recognized general standard to prevent human rights violation against the abusive power.
Blasphemy law (BL) has become a central issue for the international community in various parts of the world in the last three decades. In almost every case involving the BL, especially in Muslim ...countries, such as Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia, they are always responded with violence or threats of attack that cause many victims, loss of homes, damage to places of worship, evictions, stigma of being heretical, severe punishments, or extra-judicial killings. When international human rights law (IHLR) and declaration of the right to peace are adopted by the international community, at the same time, the number of violence related to the application of BL continues to increase. This paper aims to examine the ambiguity of the concept of the BL in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and how its lead to the weak of enforcement that creates social injustice and inequality. Then, referring to Galtung’s theory of structural violence and other experts of peace studies, this paper argues that blasphemy law should be included as a form of structural violence. Therefore its challenges these States to reform their BL in which its provisions accommodate the state’s neutrality and content high legal standards. Thus, through guarantee the fully enjoyment of human rights for everyone may support the States to achieve sustainable peace.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced States to promulgate various legal policies to restrain public activities, including limiting or prohibiting people to exercise their right to religious freedom or ...beliefs (FoRB) in the public sphere and imposing repressive sanctions. International Human Rights Law (IHRL) regulates the standard limitation of FoRB, but the Government of Indonesia struggled to balance respecting FoRB and protecting public health, especially in the emergency of Covid-19. While the Government is oriented to protect public health, new violations of FORB add more backlog on unresolved cases. Through a Human Rights-Based Approach and case studies, three essential principles of FoRB, namely the principle of non-discrimination, the principle of proportional restriction, and the principle of non-coercion in religion, will be analyzed qualitatively to assess, first, the extent to which legal policies in Indonesia amid Covid-19 are compatible with IHRL. Second, the extent to which these legal policies impact the right to religious freedom of the people. Third, to ask the question: how should the legal policies in the Covid-19 era be formulated so that the State can balance the protection of public health and religious freedom?
Keywords: Covid-19, the right to freedom of religion or belief, the right to public health, derogation, limitation.
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