The Constitutional Interpretation of Women's Political Rights

Abstract

The research focuses on the gender equality and justice interpretation of women's political rights in the Constitutional Court decisions. The problem is how does the interpretation of the constitution protect and fulfill women's political rights?. The research method is legal doctrinal, focusing on constitutional interpretation with several approaches, including the statutory, analytical, and case approaches. The result of the research shows that the function of the Court as a protector of women's political rights is a consequence of the existence of human rights in the 1945 Constitution. Its guarantees the constitutional review authority to protect human rights. Based on several decisions of the Court: affirmative action case, leadership positions in the house of representatives case, the women position of governor and vice governor's appointment in a Special Region of Yogyakarta. These decisions, which are above cases, are a form of protection and fulfillment of women's political rights in realizing gender equality and justice. Of course, it is motivated by the fact that women's representation must be present in every political decision-making in the national and local governance.

The Indonesian Constitutional Court Approaches the Proportionality Principle to the Cases Involving Competing Rights

“…Judicial review is an authority of constitutional judges to supervise or assess the process of legislation-making in formal judicial review and to review the substance of the content of the law, including articles, paragraphs, and phrases in a material judicial review system (Lailam, & Andrianti, 2022). It is the most important factor in any legislative change (Laksono et.al, 2017), a legal instrument to control political dynamics in the democratic rule of law (Safa'at, 2022), and significantly consolidate national and local democracies in Indonesia (Satriawan, & Mokhtar, 2015).…”

“…Hence, the fifth value of Pancasila, "Social Justice for all Indonesian people," reflects the balance and justice of life for all citizens based on the fourth value of Pancasila on deliberative democracy guiding rules for legislationmaking and judicial review(Lailam, 2015). SatjiptoRahardjo's (2003) opinion that the Pancasila legal system is a container of various characteristics that grow and exist in Indonesia with highly distinctive values, such as kinship, fatherhood, harmony, balance, and deliberation, all of which are the basis of this legal system; legal substance, law enforcement officer, and legal culture(Lailam, & Andrianti, 2023). The original Indonesian principle of proportionality is "harmony (serasi), aligned (selaras), and balance (seimbang)."…”