Legal Protection for Land Rights Holders Beyond Administrative Registration: Re-Examining The Declarative Function of Land Registration in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.38035/gijlss.v3i4.704Keywords:
Legal Protection, Land Registration, Declarative Function, Substantive Land Rights, Agrarian LawAbstract
Land registration has long been positioned as a central mechanism for achieving legal certainty within land administration systems. In Indonesia, registration is formally designed to function as a declarative mechanism that records and publicizes existing land rights, thereby supporting administrative order and evidentiary clarity. Nevertheless, in legal practice, land registration is increasingly treated as a decisive factor that determines the existence and enforceability of land rights. This shift reflects a tendency to equate legal protection with administrative registration status, rather than with the substantive legitimacy of land relations. This article examines legal protection for land rights holders beyond administrative registration by re-examining the declarative function of land registration in Indonesia. Using a normative juridical research method, the study analyzes statutory regulations, legal doctrines, and judicial reasoning to assess how far registration has departed from its intended evidentiary role. The analysis demonstrates that substantive land rights may arise independently of registration through possession, contractual relations, inheritance, and recognition under customary law. When registration is elevated to a quasi-constitutive status, these rights risk marginalization despite their legal legitimacy. The article argues that effective legal protection requires a clear distinction between the existence of land rights and the administrative mechanisms used to evidence them. Land registration should operate as a supportive instrument that strengthens legal certainty without excluding substantively valid rights. By reaffirming the declarative function of registration, Indonesia’s land administration system can better harmonize administrative certainty with substantive justice and ensure more inclusive protection for land rights holders.
References
Asshiddiqie, J. (2006). Konstitusi dan konstitusionalisme Indonesia. Jakarta: Konstitusi Press.
Bedner, A. (2016). Indonesian land law in context: Legal pluralism and institutional change. Asian Journal of Law and Society, 3(2), 187–214.
Boone, C. (2014). Property and political order in Africa: Land rights and the structure of politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De Soto, H. (2000). The mystery of capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books.
FAO. (2012). Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Faundez, J. (2016). Legal pluralism and development: Bridging the gap. Law and Development Review, 9(1), 1–28.
Fitzpatrick, D. (2007). Land, custom, and the state in post-Suharto Indonesia. Journal of Agrarian Change, 7(3), 330–359.
Hadjon, P. M. (1987). Perlindungan hukum bagi rakyat di Indonesia. Surabaya: Bina Ilmu.
Harsono, B. (2008). Hukum agraria Indonesia: Sejarah pembentukan Undang-Undang Pokok Agraria, isi dan pelaksanaannya. Jakarta: Djambatan.
Lindsey, T. (2018). Legal pluralism, the state, and the Indonesian agrarian system. Indonesia Law Review, 8(1), 1–18.
McCarthy, J. F. (2016). Land governance and legal protection in Indonesia. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 57(3), 386–401.
Republic of Indonesia. (1960). Law Number 5 of 1960 concerning Basic Agrarian Principles. State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia.
Republic of Indonesia. (2021). Government Regulation Number 18 of 2021 concerning Management Rights, Land Rights, Flats, and Land Registration. State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia.
Sikor, T., & Lund, C. (2009). Access and property: A question of power and authority. Development and Change, 40(1), 1–22.
Simarmata, R. (2018). Legal recognition and protection of customary land rights in Indonesia. Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 50(2), 193–215.
Sumardjono, M. S. W. (2001). Kebijakan pertanahan: Antara regulasi dan implementasi. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press.
Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia. (2005). Decision Number 2664 K/Pdt/2005.
Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia. (2014). Decision Number 1431 K/Pdt/2014.
Von Benda-Beckmann, F., & Von Benda-Beckmann, K. (2019). Legal pluralism and the protection of property rights. Asian Journal of Law and Society, 6(1), 1–20.
World Bank. (2019). Land governance assessment framework: Indonesia country report. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 M. Filusi Ardiansyah, Darwati Susilastuti
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright :
Authors who publish their manuscripts in this journal agree to the following conditions:
- Copyright in each article belongs to the author.
- The author acknowledges that the Greenation International Journal of Law and Social Sciences (GIJLSS) has the right to be the first to publish under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (Attribution 4.0 International CC BY 4.0).
- Authors can submit articles separately, arrange the non-exclusive distribution of manuscripts that have been published in this journal to other versions (for example, sent to the author's institutional repository, publication in a book, etc.), by acknowledging that the manuscript has been published for the first time at GIJLSS.
