The Rights of Daughters

According to the Supreme Court, biological daughters, daughters from different marriages, and adopted daughters are all entitled to inherit property. The Supreme Court recognises that principally, every child, regardless of gender and from which marriage, has the same rights to inherit from his/her parents.

This study also found a decision that grants the right to inherit the marital property of parents obtained through a different marriage. This concerned a case from a civil court in Central Java about a certain Kadiman, who married twice. He got one son (Sarah) and one daughter (Marminah) from the first marriage with Kartijah. Sarah had no child and adopted Marminah’s daughter, named Nakirah. Kadiman held much land, partly as marital property and partly as separate property. All the properties were given to his wife, Kartijah, and children, Sarah and Marminah.

Kadiman then married for a second time, with Karsi, and got one daughter (Peti) from this marriage. This second marriage lasted only three years and then Karsi went back to live with Sarah, the son of his first wife. After Kadiman died, Peti started disputing the lands with Nakirah. The Civil Court stated that Peti was the inheritor of Nakirah’s father’s property through Kadiman’s second wife, while Nakirah was the inheritor in her capacity as a daughter replacing her mother, Marminah (who had died). The Appellate Court in Semarang, Central Java, overturned the decision of the Civil Court, arguing that a daughter from a second marriage has no right to her father’s marital and separate property from the first marriage.

However, the Supreme Court in 2007 overturned the Appellate Court decision and upheld the one from the Civil Court. Peti was recognised as an inheritor of Kadiman’s property from the second marriage, while Nakirah was recognised as a daughter of Marminah (Nakirah was not recognised as an adopted child of Sarah). Four years earlier, the Supreme Court Judges decided an almost similar case from Jember.

Another complication resulting from multiple marriages concerns the situation where a biological child is entitled to his father’s inheritance, but the wife from another marriage with the father is still alive. In such a case, from Probolinggo, the Supreme Court decided that this wife is entitled to benefit from and manage the inheritance and that only after she dies must the property be returned to the decedent’s biological child.

The Supreme Court also decided to treat daughters on par with sons in cases concerning sanggan land (a village’s customary land) related to the positions held as the village head. The case concerned the estate of a certain Sutorejo, who had three children: two sons, Karto Sandimi and Resodiman, and one daughter, Sodikem. The dispute was between the widow and Sodikem, on the one hand, and the children of Resodiman on the other. It had never happened in the village that sanggan land was inherited by a daughter, but in 2001, the Supreme Court decided that a daughter held this as well. A similar case was also decided in favour of the daughter in Klaten (Central Java) by the Supreme Court in 2003.

As mentioned above, the Supreme Court has also started to recognise the rights of adopted children. They still have no rights to their adoptive parents' separate property, but they are entitled to their marital property. This was already decided by the Supreme Court in 1959 but followed through in a case in 2003. It concerned a rich woman called Yasunah, who left 13 plots of land when she died. She was childless despite having been married twice.

Another important recent decision concerning inheritance was not from the Supreme Court but from the Constitutional Court. In its decision No. 46∕PUU-VIII∕20io, the Court recognised the existence of a civil relationship of children born out of wedlock. This decision derogated from Article 43 of the Marriage Law (1/1974) which states that a child from an illegal marriage only has a civil relationship with the child's own mother. The Constitutional Court decision amended this provision by stating that “a child born out of wedlock has official civil relations with the child's mother family or the mother, and with a man who is the child's father, as long as the evidence can be proved using science and technology or evidence is legitimated by law.”

All of this demonstrates how the Supreme Court, as well as the Constitutional Court, have improved the legal position of the inheritance of widows, daughters, adopted children, and children born out of wedlock.