Rechtsverwerking as a Remedy for the Weakness of Indonesia’s Negative Land Publication System: Judicial Perceptions in Medan and the Problem of Legal Certainty

Abstract

Indonesia adopts a negative land publication system with positive tendencies, so a land certificate remains open to challenge by anyone claiming a better right. Article 32(2) of Government Regulation No. 24 of 1997 tries to remedy this weakness through the customary-law doctrine of rechtsverwerking, which bars claims filed more than five years after a certificate was issued to a good-faith holder in actual possession. This study examines how the doctrine is regulated, how it can be applied as an instrument of national land law, and what legal certainty it offers for registered land. A normative-empirical design combined statutory, conceptual and case analysis with interviews of ten judges, five from the Medan State Administrative Court and five from the Medan High State Administrative Court, analysed qualitatively. All ten judges accepted that prolonged neglect can extinguish land rights, yet only one had applied the doctrine to registered land. Opinion was split five to five on whether a government regulation is an adequate legal form, and six rejected the five-year period, four of them as too short. Reasons for non-application included the ninety-day limit in the State Administrative Court Law, the court’s competence over decisions rather than ownership, and the absence of compensation for the true owner. Agreement on the purpose of the doctrine thus coexists with disagreement on its form, period and procedural fit, leaving certainty conditional. The study recommends Supreme Court guidance, clearer elements of Article 32(2) and a compensation mechanism such as title insurance.