Abstract

The initiative to recognize and incorporate customary law into the state system is now a ubiquitous phenomenon. However, how and for what purposes such incorporation has to be performed is still a heated debate. Using the case of the Indonesian Bill of Criminal Code (BCC), this article examines how the government uses its law-making power to utilize customary law (adat law) and the legal and political benefits the state could earn from such utilization. I argue that, by constructing adat law as ‘living law’ and using it as the basis for criminal conviction, the BCC has continued its romantic, but legalistic, approach in managing legal pluralism. This article envisions that such incorporation will freeze the dynamic character of adat law, allowing the state to entrench its domination and create a false sense of security in responding to Indonesia’s legal pluralism challenges. Therefore, the state recognition of adat law can distort and undermined adat law as an empirical phenomenon.

摘要

承认习惯法并将其纳入国家体系的举措现在已成为普遍现象。然而，如何以及出于什么目的进行这种合并仍然是一个激烈的争论。本文以印度尼西亚刑法典 (BCC) 为例，探讨了政府如何利用其立法权来利用习惯法（adat 法）以及国家可以从这种利用中获得的法律和政治利益。我认为，通过将 adat 法构建为“活法”并将其用作刑事定罪的基础，BCC 继续其浪漫但合法的方法来管理法律多元化。本文设想这种合并将冻结 adat 法的动态特性，允许国家巩固其统治地位并在应对印度尼西亚的法律多元化挑战时营造虚假的安全感。因此，国家承认 adat 法会扭曲和破坏 adat 法作为一种经验现象。