Constitutional Court rules

indigenous faiths
'acknowledged' by state
 The Jakarta Post

Jakarta | Tue, November 7, 2017 | 04:43 pm

The Constitutional Court granted a judicial review request on

Tuesday to challenge the 2013 Civil Administration Law that will
pave way for Indonesian native-faith followers to have their beliefs
officially recognized by the government.

Reading out its ruling in a hearing presided by Justice Arief Hidayat,

the court said articles in the law that required people adopting
indigenous native faiths to leave the religion column in their ID cards
blank were discriminatory.

“Article 61 [2] and Article 64 [5] of the Civil Administration Law

contradict the 1945 Constitution and these articles are not legally
binding,” Arief said Tuesday.

The judicial review was filed in 2016 by followers of four indigenous

faiths who argued that the law violated the principle of equality
before the law.

Justice Saldi Isra said the disputed articles provided no legal

certainty and violated principles of equal justice for all citizens. The
articles had also created difficulties for native-faith followers to
obtain e-ID and family registration cards.

By leaving the religion fields blank, indigenous-belief followers had

also suffered problems in exercising their rights, including difficulties
in marriage registration and accessing civil administration services,
Saldi said.

The religion field on family registration and e-ID cards of people

adopting indigenous beliefs should now show that they are
"penghayat kepercayaan(native-faith followers)" without details
about their native faith, Saldi added.
According to Culture and Education Ministry data, there were about
1,200 native-faith groups with at least 12 million followers across
the Muslim-majority country in 2016. (ebf)