International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 110

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
postmodernism can be seen as closing the book of knowledge, the fading away of dialectical
inquiry and lead to the ignorance of unjust social relations.
Indonesia’s experience
This paper contextualised legal pluralism debate and discussion to Indonesia, beginning in
the post-colonial or unification era, new order developmental era and continuing to the
current reformation era.
Post-colonial (unification) era
Soepomo was an important person whose insights and knowledge framed the Indonesian
legal paradigm. His integralistic theory was romantic in that it favoured the Indonesian adat
values as the legal foundation for the Indonesian legal system, while lessening Western and
individualistic values. Soepomo’s speech at the Preparation Meeting of Indonesia’s
Independence highlighted his paradigm:
The foundation of the nation must be based on its own legal experiences
(rechtsgeschichte) and its social structure and institutions (sociale structuur). Other
nation’s contexts are not guaranteed to be fitted to Indonesia’s context. (Kusuma,
2004, 125)
Soepomo (1980) considered adat law a living law, one that was continually and actually
living within the community and that, reflected the legal conscience of the community.
Soekarno (1964) added to Soepomo’s argument by proposing a concept of
Indonesian democracy, which was not Western democracy, but a synthesis of political and
economic democracy aimed social welfare. Hatta then added to this further by rejecting the
Western liberal political concepts, stating that Indonesia’s democracy must be rooted in the
spirit of collectivism not liberalisation. Hatta reffered to his democracy concept as, a social
democracy influenced by three sources: Western socialism, Islamic teaching and indigenous
collectivism (Manan, 2011, 8), which was rather an ambitious wish.
In the post-colonial era to the earliest years of developmental era, Koesno was the
key defender of natural law and the adat law school. He actively advocated the notion of
law as a value, which went against the mainstream perspective of legal formalism. Koesno
was convinced that Indonesian law should be spirited by adat law, with its two cardinal
principles: democracy and national fraternity (Koesno,1995, 120).
Koesno’s stand point was meta-physic and categorical in nature. He rejected the
principles of the separation of law into: objective law and subjective law. He considered
that classification to be misleading, saying that subjective law is the true meaning or spirit of
the law which becomes the essence of positive law. In other words, legal values are higher
than positive law. In Indonesian law, the objective law is equivalent to state law, and
subjective law is equivalent to ‘rights’. He also rebutted dogmatic inquiry and legal language,
which primarily influenced by Dutch’s terminology, including the superiority of the rule of
regulation.
In its earlier years, Indonesia was not prepared for a sophisticated legal structure.
Thus to avoid a legal vacuum, the newly born republic simply transplanted the Dutch
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