Constitutional Justice Suhartoyo chairing the material judicial review hearing of laws on minimum marriage age, Thursday (9/21/2023). Photo by MKRI/Fauzan.

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JAKARTA (MKRI) — The Constitutional Court (MK) held the second hearing on the material judicial review of Article 7 paragraphs (2) and (3) of Law No. 16 of 2019 on the Amendment to Law No. 1 of 1974 on Marriage and Article 1 paragraph (1) of Law No. 34 of 2014 on the Amendment to Law No. 23 of 2002 on Child Protection (UUPA). However, Petitioner Dian Leonaro Benny did not attend this petition revision hearing for case No. 99/PUU-XXI/2023 on Thursday, September 21, 2023.

Therefore, Constitutional Justices Suhartoyo (panel chair), Enny Nurbaningsih, and M. Guntur Hamzah only announced in this open, public hearing that the Petitioner had expressed his wish to withdraw the petition.

Also read: Petitioner Requests Minimum Marriage Age in Two Laws Be Harmonized

On at the preliminary hearing on Wednesday, September 13, 2023, the Petitioner said that the change to the minimum marriage age for men and women—currently the same—and dispensation for underage children—as mentioned in the Constitutional Court Decision No. 22/PUU-XV/2017—have led to the increase of requests for marriage dispensation from the religious court. He revealed that until November 13, 2019, the Religious Court of Semarang City recorded 85 of such requests; while the Religious Court of Purwakarta recorded 92 of such requests in 2019. There is no specific definition of such dispensations in the Marriage Law.

The Petitioner believes the obscurity of the norm has led to increasing requests of marriage dispensation in Indonesia. The majority of such requests is filed to the Religious Court due to out-of-wedlock pregnancy due to premarital sex among underage children, followed by economic factor or poverty, in which parents marry their children to older men in the hopes it would lessen the family’s burden. He asserted that in order to avoid such legal ambiguity and for the sake of legislative harmony, the articles relating to the age of legal adulthood and the minimum marriage age must be harmonized and set to be either 18 or 19 years. Therefore, in the petitum, the Petitioner requests that the Court annul the a quo articles and declare them unconstitutional.

Author       : Sri Pujianti
Editor        : Lulu Anjarsari P.
PR            : Tiara Agustina
Translator  : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)

Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian versions, the Indonesian version will prevail.

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