Legal Literacy - As we all know, the hierarchy of laws and regulations in Indonesia consists of many types of regulations, ranging from the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, MPR Decree, laws to district / city regional regulations (perda).

Of the many laws and regulations, there are often regulations that regulate similar things, but contradict each other, causing confusion in their implementation. So it is important for us to be able to understand the hierarchy of laws and regulations so that later we understand which regulations should be used.

Definition of Legislation

The definition of laws and regulations is written regulations that contain legal norms that are binding in general and are formed or stipulated by state institutions or authorized officials through procedures stipulated in the Laws and Regulations.

Meanwhile, the word hierarchy itself in the Big Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI) means a sequence of levels or levels. Thus, understanding the hierarchy of laws and regulations means finding out the order of the levels of laws and regulations in Indonesia.

To be able to know the hierarchy of laws and regulations, of course we must refer to Law Number 12 of 2011 which is an update of Law Number 10 of 2004 and was last updated through Law Number 13 of 2022 concerning the Formation of Legislation.

Article 7 paragraph (1) of the Law states that the types and hierarchy of laws and regulations consist of:

  1. Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia Year 1945
  2. Decree of the People's Consultative Assembly
  3. Law / Government Regulation in Lieu of Law
  4. Government Regulation
  5. Presidential Regulation
  6. Provincial Regional Regulations, and
  7. District/City Regional Regulation

Then, Article 7 paragraph (2) of the Law states that the legal force of laws and regulations is in accordance with the hierarchy as referred to in paragraph (1). Thus, from these two provisions we can understand that in hierarchy/order, according to Article 7 paragraph (1), that the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia is the legislation that has the highest order, then the second order is the MPR Decree, and so on up to district/city regulations. Likewise, with the nature of its legal force, the 1945 Constitution has the highest legal force compared to other laws and regulations.

Read More: The State in the Ideal Portrait of a Political Law: For People's Sovereignty