State Intervention on Interfaith Marriage through the Supreme Court’s Circular in Indonesia: Human Rights Overview

The state has been obliged to fulfil, protect, and respect human rights in passive contexts, such as marriage, limited to the recognition as an internal forum party. However, the state intervenes by imposing restrictions on the implementation of these rights through the Supreme Court with Circular 2/2023, which instructs judges personally to reject applications for interfaith marriage registration, which contradicts the state's negative right to ‘not interfere’ within certain limits. The purpose of this study is to analyse the application of positive law and legal principles in interfaith marriage registration applications in Indonesia, as well as to examine state intervention in regulating and restricting personal rights through circulars based on human rights principles. This article employs a normative, statutory, conceptual, and case approach. It argues that there is a normative conflict between Article 2(1) of the Marriage Law and Article 35(a) of the Population Administration Law. However, several court rulings have granted interfaith marriage registrations by considering Article 35(a) of the Population Administration Law and principles of human rights law. Based on this phenomenon, the Supreme Court issued a Circular providing guidance (harmful interference) to judges regarding interfaith marriage applications, instructing judges to reject the applications and only rely on the Marriage Law Article 2 (1) and 8(f). This Circular essentially violates international human rights principles and judicial independence, as it requires the state to take a hostile or passive stance, limited to interfaith marriage registration as a form of human rights recognition.