The Constitutionality of Inheritance Rights for Extramarital Children: Assessing the Legal Response under Balinese Customary Law

Abstract

This article analyzes the inheritance rights of children of extramarital under the Balinese Customary Law post-Constitutional Court decision. This study focuses on the extramarital position in inheritance under Balinese Customary Law after the enactment of Constitutional Court decision. Any child born from unmarried parents and adultery is stigmatised as extramarital child (walad al zina)for his entire life and is forbidden from inheriting an estate of his biological father. Then, the reason why this legal issue is chosen as the main subject of the study is due to the legal circumstance in which the Balinese community does not grant a position to extramarital children under Balinese customary law in inheritance from the Purusa line. Hindu-Balinese religious leaders such as Parisada, as well as the Traditional Village Council, have never followed up the Constitutional Court's ruling stating that children born out of wedlock have civil relations with their biological fathers. Islamic religious leaders have followed up on the Constitutional Court's decision by issuing a fatwa of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) imposing an obligation on biological fathers to separate their wealth for a guarantee of life to children. Applying the statutory approach, conceptual approach, sociological approach, and case approach, it can be understood that children born out of wedlock (Balinese call it begin at children) have no position as heirs in the purusa line but only have an inheritance relationship with their mother and their mother's family.