Discourse on Family Court Establishment in Indonesia

Jakarta | Badilag.net
Discourse on possibility of family court in Indonesia emerged in some discussions. Some people desired that a family court   with a special criminal jurisdiction to established. This court will enable woman and child get more access to justice.

LBH APIK held a workshop on this issue in Building of Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection, Friday (17/2/2012). LBH APIK proposed some model of family court in which could be established in Indonesia. First, family court as special court belongs to the General Court for non-Muslim and family court as special court belongs to the Religious Court for Muslim.

This workshop invited two important speakers, the Director General of the Religious Courts, Wahyu Widiana and the Director General of the General Courts. Chief of High General Court of Jakarta, Ansyahrul represented the Director General of General Courts, Cicut Sutiarso who could not attend the workshop. Dian Rosita from LeIP also attended the workshop.

Wahyu Widiana stated that it was not wrong when people mentioned the Religious Courts as family court.

“It is the fact that almost 97 percents of cases handled by the Religious Courts are related to the family law matters”, he said.

He also explained that most of divorce cases were triggered by domestic violence both physical and psychological violence.

 

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However, Wahyu Widiana emphasized that the Religious Courts had no jurisdiction to handle domestic violence as a criminal case. They examined religious civil cases only including joint marital property, child custody, maintenance, etc.

 

The question arises, is there possibility to establish a family court with criminal jurisdiction in Indonesia?

According to Wahyu Widiana, a family court could be established if word of “particular civil cases” in article 49 of the Law No. 3/2006 would be omitted. He explained that the Religious Courts in Aceh had have jurisdiction of criminal law although it was very limited.

“In fact, it is a complicated problem. It needs to amend some laws. The Supreme Court is passive but executive and legislative should be active to this problem’, he said.

Not only Judicial Problem

Ansyahrul stated that it was not only judicial problem but also political one. Therefore, the discourse on the establishment of family court might be based on deep research and study, not only based on merely assumption and opinions published on mass media.

“It must be noted that whether there is an emergency to establish a special court to handle domestic violence or not?” he said.

According to Ansyahrul, the preventive solution would be more important than establishment of family court.
(Rahmat Arijaya)