Concept Of Social Justice In The Indonesian Constitution: A Postcolonial Perspective

Abstract

The study focuses to compare the ideas, norms, and practices of the reconstruction of statecraft tradition between Indonesian and Malaysian constitutional legal system. Conceptually, there are two model of reconstruction of tradition in the constitution, namely the particular-absolute and the particular-relative. The first emphasizes on the absolute aspects of genuine tradition, which essentially different from the values of modern state. The later stresses more on relative aspects of the proper genuine tradition with the values of modern state. Historically, before the amendment of the Indonesian Constitution, the reconstruction of tradition was practiced based on particular absolute model, while after the constitutional amendment tends to reject to reconstruct the tradition at the national structure, but recognize the traditions at local structure. Generally, it can be concluded that the amendment of the Indonesian Constitution does not have an obvious pattern of reconstruction of tradition. It contradicts with the original meaning of the Indonesian founders, who obviously believed tradition as a basic to create a national constitutional system. Meanwhile, Malaysia has been practicing reconstruction of tradition based on particular relative model by applying the perpatih tradition in the Malaysian elected monarch system.