The Force of Legal Regard to Traditional Land When Certified Through PPAT

Abstract

Customary land occupies a unique position in the Indonesian land law system because customary law is established as the basis for national land law through Article 5 of Law Number 5 of 1960 concerning Basic Agrarian Principles. In practice, customary land is often certified as private property without prior release of customary rights, thus raising issues regarding the validity of the certificates issued and the responsibility of the Land Deed Officials who process them. This study aims to determine, examine, and analyze the existence of customary law in the national land law system, the legal consequences of the issuance of Ownership Certificates for customary land by PPAT without prior release of customary rights, and the extent to which customary law still has legal force over certified customary land. The approach used is normative juridical with analytical descriptive research specifications. The data sources used are secondary data, including primary legal materials, secondary legal materials, and tertiary legal materials, collected through literature studies and analyzed descriptively and qualitatively. The results of the study indicate, first, that the existence of customary law is dual: strong at the normative level through constitutional and statutory recognition, but weak at the operational level due to the absence of an obligation to examine customary status in land registration procedures. Second, the issuance of a Certificate of Ownership over customary land without the release of customary rights has multiple legal consequences, namely a certificate that can be revoked, a PPAT deed that has the potential to be null and void by law, as well as administrative, civil, and criminal responsibilities for the PPAT.