The Guardian of Stamp Duty: Judicial Evasion and Procedural Hyper-Formalism in the Indonesian Constitutional Court

Sherly Putri Nurhayati (Universitas Negeri Surabaya)
Febrian Indar Surya Kusuma (Universitas Negeri Surabaya)
Vivi Ayudya Permatasari (Southwest University of Political Science and Law)

Constitutionale
Vol 7 No 1 (2026)

This article examines judicial evasion and procedural hyper-formalism in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court through Case No. 30/PUU-XXIV/2026, in which a petition challenging internet quota expiration was dismissed solely for lacking valid stamp duty. Using normative-juridical and socio-legal approaches, it conceptualizes the dismissal as procedural weaponization: the instrumental use of a minor fiscal requirement to avoid adjudicating a public interest claim involving IDR 63 trillion. Drawing on theories of passive virtues, repeat-player asymmetry, and dual legitimation, the article demonstrates how rigid procedural formalism reinforces corporate advantages and restricts ordinary citizens’ access to constitutional justice. Substantively, purchased internet quota qualifies as constitutionally protected property, while retaining payments for undelivered capacity constitutes unjust enrichment. The article proposes two remedies: a doctrine of procedural leniency for public interest litigation and a conditional constitutionality ruling requiring operators to allow unused data quotas to roll over.