Abstract
In post-conflict settings, constitutional courts have important roles to play despite complex and often competing challenges they face to institutionalize their legitimacy and entrench the rule of law while attempting to build bridges from conflict to peace. By processing political conflict through legal means, constitutional courts can shift the tenor of public dialogue and provide a less inflammatory platform for analyzing conflicts that have divided societies. This article analyzes two seminal cases decided by the Constitutional Court of Indonesia in the aftermath of post- Suharto conflict and finds that despite its young age, the Court addressed lustration issues and a Truth and Reconciliation scheme in ways that were consistent with approaches taken by other post- conflict apex courts, concluding that the Constitutional Court of Indonesia has solidified its position among modern constitutional bodies. Instead of relying only on its own decisions or those of the Supreme Court, it has demonstrated its ability to carry out comprehensive global comparative analysis, referring to cases from other constitutional and international courts to help shape its jurisprudence. In this way, the Indonesian Court is ahead of a number of other apex courts in its willingness to consider constitutional issues through a global lens.
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2024
Publication Information
Courts and Diversity: Twenty Years of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia (Bertus de Villiers, Saldi Isra, and Pan Mohamad Faiz, eds. Brill, 2024)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Repository Citation
Warren, Christie S., "The Constitutional Court of Indonesia as a Post-Conflict Institution" (2024). Faculty Publications. 2161.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/2161
Comments
Entire book is available via the library's catalog.