Nama : Putri Arini
NIM : 1902016144
Kelas : HKI D3
Hukum Perdata Islam Indonesia
State Marriage and Civil Marriage
The Role of State Policy on Interreligious Marriage in Central Java
Concepts on Legal Policy and Legal Justice
The word “policy” etimologically originates from English word “policy” or Dutch word “politiek”.
Terminologically, policy means a set of concepts or principles which form the basis for doing a job, leadership and
how to behave.11 Thus, the phrase of legal policy is synonymous with political law. Mahfudh furthermore says
that political law is also a legal policy or legal direction that the state needs to enforce it in order to achieve its
purposes by either creating a new law or replacing the old one.
The Rights of Civil Society
Mahfudh says that neither Islamic nor secular, Indonesia is a state based on Pancasila (Five Pillars). It is thus
impossible to govern rules on civil society by Islam or other religion. In reality, however, the state regulates issues
related to religious communities, including the issue of marriage. It, for instance, regulates the validity of marriage
based on provisions of official religion in Indonesia, which is limited only to six religions.
The Regulation on Interreligious Marriage in Indonesia
According to Marriage Law No. 1 of 1974, "marriage is a physically and mentally bond between a man and a
woman as husband and wife with intention of building a family or household that is happy and eternal based on
the Divinity of the One God". Marriage in Indonesia, before the birth of Marriage Law No. 1 of 1974, was regulated
in several laws namely religious law, customary law and the West law.
Administration System and Its Mechanism towards Interreligious Marriage in Indonesia
Law No. 23 of 2006 on Demographic Administration describes the systematic order of people’s important
events, one of which is the event of marriage mentioned in Article 8 and 9 in addition to Article 34 and 35 which
clarify the provisions of marriage registration. Article 34 states as follows: (1) A valid marriage under the provisions
of law must be reported by the resident to the official agency where the marriage takes place 60 (sixty) days on
the latest from the date; (2) Based on the report referred to number (1), Civil Registry officer records it on
Marriage Act’s register and publishes its Quoted Marriage Act. Afterward, Article 35 states that "the marriage
registration referred to in Article 34 shall also apply to: (a) marriage determined by the court.
The Policies of Implementing Interreligious Marriage
The implementation of interreligious marriage in Central Java, namely, Surakarta, Semarang and Jepara
regency has different experience, especially in terms of providing legal license. This is mainly because different
legal understanding of the law enforcers on interreligious marriage.
At Surakarta State Court, after the issuance of Marriage Law No. 1 of 1974, interreligious marriage was still
prohibited. It recently changed after ratification of the Law No. 23 of 2006 in which the Court received totally 39
petitions of interreligious marriage from 2007 to 2013. The petition itself is firstly submitted when the applicants
register the marriage to the Civil Registry Office. After the Office checks it, the applicant will typically get a
rejection letter because of interreligious marriage prohibition based on the provisions of article 21 of Marriage
Law No. 1 of 1974. The rejection letter from the Office of Civil Registry then becomes one of requirements for
applying permission/license to the State Court. Furthermore, the Court examines the petition from either its
formal or material requirements namely compliance with requirements, reason on the applicant and the spouse’s
will to build interreligious marriage, and explanation of witnesses from each family to ensure that both parents
have allowed and approved their marriage plan. At first, the judge always advises the couples to get marriage with
those with same religion by explaining the risks of interreligious one. However, if a couple has already had strong
willingness to perform interreligious marriage, the judge can order a new examination to continue.3
The policy of Semarang State Court to reject the interreligious marriage implies that it does not consider the
provisions of article 21 of the Marriage Law No. 1 of 1974 explaining that the concept of marriage should
accomodate the perception of the judge and some prohibitions. In such conditions, interreligious couples who
want to perform marriage in Semarang should convert into his/her couple's religion for the sake of validity of their
marriage. They must decide which spouse should temporarily convert his/her previous belief into their spouse’s
religion by changing religious identity on their identity cards (Kartu Tanda Penduduk/KTP) to comply with the
marriage administration. After the marriage gets legalization, they turn their religion back into their own original
teachings and religious rituals. This, for instance, happened to a couple of SR who is a Muslim woman and her
husband STF who is a Catholics. SR converted into her husband’s religion and performed a marriage using
Catholicism way. After the marriage, however, SR continued to perform her Islamic rituals.44 The same is the case
of SHD, a Catholics who converted into Islam when he wanted to marry MSY who is a Muslim woman. After the
marriage settlement, he converted back into his Catholicism and until now both have had three children.
Interreligious marriage in Jepara have never formally happened since the law enforcers just follow the Article
21 of Law No. 1 of 1974 which states that a marriage must go through the application for a license from the State
Court and be subsequently registered in the Civil Registry Office. However, there exist three models of
interreligious marriages as mentioned above. Such conditions happen because the Court gives no opportunity for
the parties to request a license for their interreligious marriage as the procedure stated on Article 21 of the Law
of Marriage No. 1 of 1974. The Court has its own principle that marriage must be performed by a man and a
woman who believe the same religion. It means that the Court just considers the provision of marriage from the
aspect of its validity written in Article 2 paragraph (1) Law of Marriage No. 1 of 1974.
Interreligious Marriage: Between State Policy and Rights of Civil Society
A state, according to Rawls’ concept, should ideally give a sense of justice for its people not only in normative
level but also in the procedural ones. Thus, when the freedom to practice religion has been normatively specified
in the Indonesian constitutional law, namely Article 29 of the Constitution of 1945, the issue of interreligious
marriage should have been regulated in detail in Marriage Law No. 1 of 1974. Policies of state stakeholders then
exacerbate this condition by considering uncomprehensive understanding on the provisions of interreligious marriage
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