RT Article
T1 THE STATUS OF CHILDREN BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK AND ADOPTED CHILDREN IN INDONESIA: INTERACTIONS BETWEEN ISLAMIC, ADAT, AND HUMAN RIGHTS NORMS
JF Journal of law and religion
VO 34
IS 3
SP 356
OP 382
A1 Nurlaelawati, Euis
A1 Huis, Stijn Cornelis van
LA English
PB Cambridge Univ. Press
YR 2019
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1690913711
AB This article examines the cases of children born out of wedlock and adopted children with the aim of depicting the mechanisms through which the concepts of biological fatherhood, derived from the human-rights framework, and adoption, derived from the customary law framework, have been adopted into Indonesian Islamic family law. We argue that the introduction of external concepts into family law pertaining to Muslims requires an adaptation process in which the relation between these external concepts and core Islamic family law concepts is determined. In the case of children born out of wedlock, this adaptation to core Islamic norms means that biological fatherhood does not lead to a full legal father-child relationship, despite a 2012 Constitutional Court ruling establishing that children born out of wedlock have a civil relationship with their biological father. In the case of adoption, it means that there is no full adoption, despite recognition of customary adoptions under Indonesian law. We argue that in a context of strong support for a religion-based family law, reforms tend to take the form of conditions or exceptions to core religious concepts, as replacing these concepts altogether would be perceived as jeopardizing the religious character of the law. While attempts to replace core Islamic family law concepts will inevitably meet strong resistance, there is much more tolerance for introducing family law reforms that aim at changing the way that Islamic concepts are applied in practice.
K1 Indonesia
K1 Islamic Law
K1 Adat
K1 Adoption
K1 Family law
K1 judicial practices
K1 parentless children
K1 the best interests of the child
DO 10.1017/jlr.2019.41