Legal Literacy - This article discusses the history and development of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia and the idea of judicial independence. Starting from the transformation of the constitutional paradigm to the implementation of the principle of checks and balances, this article outlines the importance of the Constitutional Court in maintaining constitutional supremacy and facing current challenges.

Transformation of the Constitutional Paradigm in Constitutional Amendments

The amendment of the 1945 Constitution as a result of the reform struggle has massively fostered transformation of the Indonesian constitutional system in a short time, considering that the amendment only took place in an interval of four years and was relatively very short when compared to the juridical historicity of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. Concrete evidence is the transformation of the paradigm of MPR supremacy into constitutional supremacy. The pre-amendment Constitution of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia placed the MPR as a representation of people's sovereignty so that the MPR occupied a seat as the highest state institution.[1] This paradigm of MPR supremacy has transformed into a paradigm of constitutional supremacy which places the constitution as the sole highest entity representing people's sovereignty.[2]

This transformation of the supremacy paradigm also has implications for the principles adopted in the constitutional system. Before the amendment was made, the principle adopted in the constitutional system was the principle of division of power. This principle places an institution as the highest institution at the top of power, namely the MPR, and the power of the MPR is distributed in a vertical concept to other state institutions; such as the President, the Supreme Court (MA), and the House of Representatives (DPR). All institutions that receive a delegation of power from the MPR are seated equally and given the status of high state institutions. This constitutional practice prevents a clear separation of the functions of state institutions (Badan Pengkajian MPR RI, 2017: 2-3).

Indonesia's constitutional practice no longer adheres to conservative principles and has switched to adopting new principles that began to be applied after the Amendment to the 1945 Constitution. The principle of check and balances and separation of power which began to be applied in the Indonesian constitutional system after the Amendment to the 1945 Constitution gave rise to fairly serious normative implications. Problematics of abuse of power caused by the inseparability of branches of power is minimized by limiting power or separation of power. The orientation is so that every form of abuse of power can be returned to its normative position or back to the constitutional corridor. (Hady, 2016: 44).