The Importance of Female Judge Representation in the Constitutional Court of Indonesia to Achieve Gender Equality during Judicial Review Procedure

Abstract

The paper will discuss about how important the female judge representation in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court in order to achieve equality between genders during the process of judicial review. The Constitutional Court of Indonesia was created as a body that has the eligibility to review constitutionality under the constitution. One of the jurisdictions that the Constitutional Court of Indonesia has is to conduct judicial review. One of the elements that is needed to be achieved in the process is gender equality, in which a legislation not only guarantee lives of Indonesians as citizens with human rights, but also guarantee the equality of genders. This needs to be upheld in order to eliminate gender biased substances in legislations. Gender biased legislations will lead to disadvantages for genders. For example, the civil relations between a mother and a child born outside wedlock and the age limitation in marriage in the Indonesian Marriage Act. One of the solutions that can be done in order to eliminate gender bias clauses in legislations is by adding female representatives in the Constitutional Court. There is only one out of nine female judge listed in The Constitutional Court of Indonesia. This is seen as a problem, because in terms of reviewing clauses that give women disadvantages, there is only one woman perspectives in male-dominated panel. The research methodology used in this paper is through literature review by examining the process of judicial review. The author also uses literature review and juridical analysis to examine cases regarding gender-biased legislations. In order to examine the legislations, the author uses case study based on the judicial review verdict on the stated legislations. The author also uses literature review to examine secondary quantitative data on gender representations in the Constitutional Court.