Effectiveness of Human Rights Protection in Indonesia’s Constitutional System After the 1945 Amendments

Budiyono; Renaldy Eka Putra

doi:10.23969/litigasi.v27i2.31367

Authors

Budiyono Faculty of Law, Lampung University
Renaldy Eka Putra Faculty of Law, Lampung University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23969/litigasi.v27i2.31367

Keywords:

Amendment of the 1945 Constitution, Constitution, Constitutional System, Human Rights, Legal Reform

Abstract

The protection of human rights is a primary pillar of a democratic rule of law. Although the amendments to the 1945 Constitution (1999–2002) significantly expanded human rights coverage within Chapter XA, problems such as violence by state apparatus, discrimination, and the shrinking space for freedom of expression remain persistent issues. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of human rights protection in Indonesia’s constitutional system by examining the dissonance between the strengthening of constitutional norms and the reality of their institutional implementation. Using a juridical-normative approach enriched with qualitative analysis of constitutional texts, legislation, court rulings, and academic literature, this study finds that normative progress has not been followed by the strengthening of human rights enforcement agencies. Both the Constitutional Court and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) remain hindered by limited mandates and weak legal accountability mechanisms. The study also identifies a failure of legal harmonization at the regional level, which often results in regulations that contradict human rights principles. The novelty of this research lies in its synthetic analysis, which goes beyond a review of legal texts to examine the structural and institutional barriers that block the transformation of constitutional norms into law enforcement practice. The study thus offers a new way of mapping the gaps in human rights implementation in post-reform Indonesia. Its findings provide a framework for national legal reform and a reference for comparative constitutional law studies.

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