The Settlement of Boundary Disputes Through Testing of Legislation in Indonesia

¹ Faculty of Law, Universitas Islam Riau, Pekanbaru, Indonesia.
² Faculty of Law, Universitas Islam Riau, Pekanbaru, Indonesia.

^* Corresponding author: suparto@law.uir.ac.id

Abstract

Boundary dispute is a new phenomenon that occurred in the era of regional autonomy followed by the expansion of the region. One of them occurred between Kepulauan Riau and Jambi Provinces related to Berhala Island ownership. Settlement of disputes between these two provinces took quite a long time and also caused tensions between two provinces. Actually, the government through the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a regulation to solve the boundary problem of this area namely the Minister of Home Affairs Regulation No.1 in 2006 and No. 76 in 2012 on Guidelines for Confirmation of the Boundaries, however, is still less effective because although it has been done in such a way the party who feels aggrieved still take another way that is by testing the legislation to the Supreme Court or Mahkamah Konstitusional (Constitutional Court). An example is the boundary dispute between Kepulauan Riau and Jambi Province which was resolved through the examination of legislation to the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. In the case, there were 3 decisions, namely Supreme Court Decision No.49P/HUM/2011, Decision of the Constitutional Court No. 32/PUU-X/2012 and the decision of the Constitutional Court No. 62/PUU-X/2012. Based on the research results obtained as follows 1). Implementation of the principle or legal principle of lex posterior derogat lex priori by the Supreme Court 2). The decision of the Supreme Court was taken into consideration in the decision of the Constitutional Court 3). The cause of the territorial boundary disputes between Kepulauan Riau Province and Jambi Province was the synchronization of 3 related laws namely Indonesian Law no. 31 in 2003, Law no. 25 in 2002 and Law no. 54 of 1999.