<![CDATA[The concept of a state based on the rule of law consistently places judicial instruments as the primary pillar in upholding justice and limiting government power to prevent it from falling into the abyss of arbitrariness. The State Administrative Court was established with a constitutional mandate to provide equitable legal protection for citizens against detrimental state administrative actions. However, the evolution of administrative justice practices in Indonesia shows a tendency towards highly formalistic, rigid, and time-consuming adjudication processes, resulting in a backlog of cases across various judicial units. Amid this procedural impasse, discourse on integrating mediation as an alternative dispute resolution method has begun to emerge, particularly following the enactment of Supreme Court Regulation Number 1 of 2016 on Mediation Procedures in Court. This journal comprehensively examines the paradigm, legal probability, and empirical reality of the application of mediation in the state administrative court environment. Through a juridical-normative and sociological-empirical approach, this study seeks to dissect the legal position of mediation in the landscape of administrative disputes and examine the determinants that hinder its operationalization in the field. The analysis indicates that, philosophically and normatively, mediation in the state administrative realm has a very promising foundation, rooted in the expansion of judicial authority and in legal loopholes in Supreme Court regulations. However, at the level of empirical implementation, efforts to realize restorative justice are hampered by a lack of technical procedural law, a law-enforcement culture that still adheres to the dogma of public-law rigidity, inefficient use of infrastructure, and minimal legal literacy among justice seekers. Therefore, a holistic judicial paradigm shift is needed, accompanied by the issuance of sectoral technical regulations to institutionalize the mediation process within the administrative justice system formally.]]>
