<![CDATA[For a decade, the Supreme Court, through SEMA No. 3 of 2015 and SEMA No. 3 of 2018, consistently prohibited judges from granting custody ex officio and classified such rulings as ultra petita. SEMA No. 1 of 2025 subsequently reversed this policy by legitimizing judges' ex officio authority in custody determinations. This study aims to analyse this policy transformation and examine the shift in paradigm from procedural justice to substantive justice. Using a normative legal research method with legislative and conceptual approaches, this study concludes that the regulatory trajectory of child custody in Indonesia has been shaped by a transformative shift in judicial policy, from ultra petita to ex officio. Formally, SEMA No. 1 of 2025 derives its binding force from Article 8 of Law No. 12 of 2011 and Article 79 of the Supreme Court Law, while its substantive legitimacy is grounded in the Child Protection Law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Furthermore, SEMA No. 1 of 2025 reflects a fundamental paradigm shift from procedural justice to substantive justice, with the principle of the best interests of the child serving as the operational legal norm that legitimizes the active-protective judge model within Indonesian religious courts.]]>
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