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Agricultural land pawning is not a new phenomenon to the traditional communities (Masyarakat Adat) in Indonesia, especially the matrilineal Minangkabau people who rely on their agricultural land for economic transactions. Based on the national law, customary law (referred to as Adat Law hereafter) is to prevail over agrarian issues in Indonesia. But even so, agrarian issues remain under the influence of national law. This study discusses the management of agricultural land pawning in the matrilineal Minangkabau society according to national, Adat, and Islamic laws. Despite its popularity, the Adat law approach in dealing with land issues, especially agricultural land pawning, has not been well accommodated under National Law. This paper investigates how agricultural land pawning is regulated in Indonesia, with a focus on the Minangkabau society in West Sumatra. This paper does not seek to promote one legal system over another, but instead, it intends to promote legal certainty in agricultural land pawning in West Sumatra. To show how the lack of legal certainty can lead to confusion and conflict, this study relies on the contradicting verdicts of an agrarian conflict case from lower courts to the Supreme Court. The study reveals that the contradiction between national agrarian laws, Minangkabau Adat law and West Sumatra local Regulation No. 16/2008 on Communal Land Tenure causes confusion within the community and the judiciary. Legal certainty is crucial to strengthening the rule of law and democracy in Indonesia, and the conflicting interpretations of agrarian laws belittle this concept. This study suggests that one way to deal with legal uncertainty regarding agrarian law in West Sumatra, and throughout Indonesia, is to promote a stronger and more just decentralization, which is increasingly important as the country faces the question of legal unification. The suggested decentralization effort would leave local issues to the authority of local legislations.

Purpose Legal syncretism seeks to provide a rather different account of how laws interact with one another as the people deal with them. The purpose of this study is to provide a rather different account of how laws interact with one another as the people deal with them in the society. Design/methodology/approach This paper discusses the current concept of legal pluralism as to whether it really holds as the right theory for building a harmonious and trustworthy legal system in a multi-cultural country such as Indonesia. This study involves socio-legal research drawing on empirical data. It discusses the practice of legal pluralism in Indonesia by analyzing the characteristics of her legal system, especially the roles of customs and religion in it. Findings The research, conducted in five Indonesian cities, reveals that the current proposal of legal pluralism is not really helping to solve the difficulties faced by the Indonesian legal system. Therefore, this paper proposes legal syncretism or the theory of unity in diversity (bhineka tunggal ika) as an alternative to help cope with some of the difficulties faced by many legal systems in developing countries, especially Indonesia. Originality/value Although legal pluralism sounds promising, wrong and misleading interpretations have been provided by many of its proponents. Legal pluralism has been touted by many socio-legal scholars as a key concept in the analysis of law. Yet, after almost 20 years of such claims, there has been little progress in the development of the concept. Despite these confident pronouncements and the apparent unanimity that underlie them, however, the concept gives rise to complex unresolved problems. Legal syncretism seeks to provide a rather different account of how laws interact with one another as the people deal with them.

Since the Era Reformasi, Indonesia has continued to progressively take shape as a young democracy. Among the most evident democratic development processes in Indonesia are the elections for the heads of local government. These elections, or ''Pilkada,'' have been a topic of conversation and controversy for the national government since 2002, and, most recently, the national government amended the local election laws to mandate that all Pilkada be synchronized by the year 2024. While this initiative is complicated enough, it also further complicates a preexisting jurisdictional debate over election issues in the courts. Specifically, the authority to hear disputes over the results of the Pilkada currently lies with the Constitutional Court of Indonesia, but the Court has a ruling that deems this authority unconstitutional. Based on the country's national political structure, the national legislature has to implement this decision into statutory law to give it full effect. To date, the national legislature has not taken the steps necessary to do so. With so much controversy surrounding the Pilkada in Indonesia, this article attempts to explain how the local elections are structured, what a result dispute really is, and how the Constitutional Court is currently handling the cases. Most importantly, this research identifies how the political structure of the country creates a gap between constitutional interpretation and legislative implementation. The research for this article was a combination of exploratory and empirical, with support from Pusat Studi Konstitusi (PUSaKO) of Fakultas Hukum Universitas Andalas as well as the Constitutional Court of Indonesia. This article is meant to be an in-depth description of the local election structure, with an analysis of the legal issues that arise from jurisdiction over the result dispute cases. Therefore, the article begins with a brief explanation of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia followed by an explanation of the election process itself. The article then shifts to focus on how the Court handles the disputes, with data from the Court as well as interviews from sitting Justices of the Constitutional Court. The article then concludes with an analysis of the major legal issues that remain.