<![CDATA[This study explores the institutional strengthening of customary law within Indonesia’s pluralistic judicial system, focusing its integration across key legal areas, including criminal law, civil law, and agrarian regulations. It clarifies the legal foundations supporting the recognition of customary law, from constitutional mandates to the concept of living law in the new Criminal Code, while analyzing the strategic roles of customary institutions in community-level dispute resolution. The research identifies structural and regulatory obstacles to their integration into the state justice system, such as jurisdictional conflicts, modernization pressures, and the lack of formal enforceability for customary decisions. Using a normative juridical method with statute, conceptual, and comparative approaches, and the study demonstrates that customary institutions provide restorative, culturally grounded mechanisms that complement formal adjudication in both civil disputes and criminal matters. The novelty of this research lies in its proposed operational model for integrating customary law into the formal judicial system. The findings reveal a systemic gap where constitutional recognition fails to translate into procedural enforceability, triggering a legitimacy crisis in local dispute resolution. Moreover, the study reveals that the fragmented nature of customary mechanisms, lacking a standardized integration pattern, limits the potential for restorative justice of customary law to reduce the burden on formal courts. This article argues that reinforcing customary law across the spectrum to contribute to a more contextually responsive and socially legitimate judicial system.]]>
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