Decision No. 2-3/PUU-V/2007 (2007) (Indonesian Constitutional Court) (Human Rights‪)‬

Introduction After the fall of President Suharto's authoritarian 'New Order' regime in 1998, Indonesia's legal and political systems underwent a seismic process of reform (the 'reformasi eta') (1) In less than four years, the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia ('Constitution') (2) was amended no less than for four times, including the introduction of a set of human rights clauses in chapter XA that transformed Indonesia's disparate constitutional human rights protections into a comprehensive human rights framework. (3) The introduction of a constitutional human rights regime placed Indonesia in a somewhat unique and visionary position in a region that has been internationally notorious for its suspicion of 'Western' style rights regimes and where few countries have committed to either the core international human rights conventions or comprehensive internal human rights laws. (4) As a consequence, the work of Indonesia's fledgling Constitutional Court has been, and will continue to be, of interest to many within the region as a body of human rights jurisprudence offering unique insights into the ways in which human rights may be interpreted and applied within the Asia Pacific and Southeast Asian contexts.