International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law
Focus The International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law (IJCAL) is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing critical, comparative, and interdisciplinary scholarship in constitutional law and administrative law, with particular attention to public-law developments in the Global South. The journal provides an academic forum for the examination of constitutional design, administrative governance, democratic accountability, institutional reform, and rights protection in emerging, transitional, and postcolonial legal systems. IJCAL places distinctive emphasis on the normative legacy of the Bandung Principles, understood not merely as a historic diplomatic milestone, but as a continuing source of constitutional values relevant to sovereignty, equality, anti-colonialism, solidarity, social justice, and public responsibility in contemporary constitutional development. In this respect, the journal welcomes contributions that explore how constitutional and administrative law in the Global South generate original legal thought, institutional innovation, and alternative normative frameworks beyond Eurocentric models of public law. The journal publishes original research articles, conceptual papers, and comparative studies that address both theoretical and practical dimensions of constitutional and administrative law. IJCAL is particularly interested in scholarship that combines doctrinal rigor with comparative, socio-legal, historical, or interdisciplinary perspectives in order to explain how constitutions and administrative institutions operate in practice across different jurisdictions. Aims promote high-quality scholarship in constitutional law and administrative law with international relevance; encourage comparative and critical studies on public-law institutions, legal reform, and governance; advance Global South perspectives in constitutional and administrative scholarship; develop scholarly engagement with Bandung-inspired constitutional values in contemporary legal discourse; and publish innovative research that strengthens understanding of institutional accountability, democratic participation, and rights protection in diverse legal systems. Subject Areas The journal welcomes manuscripts on, but not limited to, the following subject areas: constitutional change, constitutional identity, and constitutional adjudication; democracy, constitutional rights, and limitations on state power; administrative law, administrative justice, and bureaucratic accountability; institutional design, public governance, and legal reform in emerging and transitional democracies; and comparative constitutional and administrative law in the Global South, including Bandung-inspired constitutional values.
Articles
19 Documents
<![CDATA[Philanthropic Constitutionalism in the Global South: Reimagining Bandung through Indonesia and South Africa’s Constitutional Experiences ]]>
<![CDATA[Novendri Nggilu]]>;
<![CDATA[Vivi Oktaviani Pulukadang]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 1 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/a96rna12
<![CDATA[The Bandung Principles have long been examined as a milestone in postcolonial diplomacy, yet they remain under-theorized within contemporary constitutional scholarship. Existing literature predominantly situates Bandung within international relations or anti-colonial legal critique, leaving unexplored its potential transformation into an enforceable constitutional paradigm of solidarity in the Global South. This article aims to reconceptualize the Bandung Principles through the framework of philanthropic constitutionalism by comparatively analyzing the constitutional experiences of Indonesia and South Africa. Employing a normative-comparative constitutional methodology grounded in doctrinal analysis and philosophical reconstruction, the study examines constitutional texts, jurisprudence, and foundational values in both jurisdictions. The analysis demonstrates that Indonesia embodies a philosophically rich yet institutionally moderated model of solidarity rooted in Pancasila and social justice, whereas South Africa institutionalizes solidarity through transformative constitutionalism, socio-economic rights enforcement, and the jurisprudential articulation of ubuntu. By synthesizing these trajectories, the article advances philanthropic constitutionalism as a novel Global South paradigm that constitutionalizes solidarity as a binding principle of governance rather than a diplomatic aspiration. This reconstruction reinterprets sovereign equality not as defensive insulation but as the foundation for self-imposed constitutional responsibility, thereby contributing a justice-oriented and postcolonial corrective to dominant global constitutional discourse.]]>
<![CDATA[Legal Policy on Sports Qualifications in Indonesia: Constitutional Implications of Constitutional Court Decision No. 52/PUU-IX/2011 ]]>
<![CDATA[Putra Perdana Ahmad Saifulloh]]>;
<![CDATA[Muwaffiq Jufri]]>;
<![CDATA[Firdaus Arifin]]>;
<![CDATA[Zico Junius Fernando]]>;
<![CDATA[Dhita Widya Putri]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 1 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/rct6q772
<![CDATA[The Phenomenon of Golf and Padel in Legal Policy The qualification of sports has become a matter of debate as to whether these activities are considered entertainment or sports?. The qualification of activities as sports or entertainment is not clearly interpreted in the Constitutional Court Decision Number 52/PUU-IX/2011. This research is a normative legal study, and and using a statutory approach and a case approach. The conclusion of this article states that golf is not categorized as entertainment. This is reinforced by Decision Number 52/PUU-IX/2011, which confirms that golf courses are not included in the types of entertainment businesses that are subject to regional taxes. Golf is considered a commercial sports service whose regulation is the authority of the central government, not the regional government. This difference in treatment has resurfaced public debate regarding the principle of fairness in taxation. On the one hand, sports like padel are considered entertainment and are subject to local taxes. On the other hand, golf, often perceived as a sport for the elite, is only subject to value-added tax, not an additional entertainment tax.. However, legally, this policy remains within the corridor of applicable tax regulations, both nationally and regionally. Ultimately, taxes will be returned to the community as a manifestation of their social function, ensuring social justice based on the principle of proportionality. Therefore, harmonizing golf-related laws and regulations is crucial to ensure optimal taxation of golf and padel and ensure legal certainty.]]>
<![CDATA[Constitutional, Legal, and Procedural Perspectives on Witness Protection: A Comparative Study of Nigeria, India, and the United States ]]>
<![CDATA[Collins Ekpenisi]]>;
<![CDATA[Amos Godfrey Atim]]>;
<![CDATA[Paul Atagamen Aidonojie]]>;
<![CDATA[Kelechi Uzoho]]>;
<![CDATA[Eregbuonye Obieshi]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 1 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/vz5x5m69
<![CDATA[Witness protection is indispensable to the effective administration of justice because witnesses who face intimidation, retaliation, or violence are less likely to cooperate with law enforcement and judicial institutions. Despite growing scholarship on witness protection, comparative studies rarely examine how constitutional foundations, legal frameworks, and administrative enforcement mechanisms interact across jurisdictions with different levels of institutional development. This article aims to analyse the constitutional, legal, and procedural dimensions of witness protection in Nigeria, India, and the United States in order to identify major weaknesses, institutional contrasts, and reform lessons. Using doctrinal legal research combined with a comparative approach, the study examines constitutions, statutes, policy instruments, judicial decisions, and relevant scholarly literature from the three jurisdictions. The study finds that the United States has the most institutionalised and effective witness protection regime, supported by a clear statutory basis, administrative coordination, and sustained state capacity. India has made important progress by constitutionalising witness protection through judicial intervention and by adopting the Witness Protection Scheme, but its implementation remains uneven due to procedural delays, inter-state disparities, and limited resources. Nigeria, by contrast, continues to face the most serious structural deficiencies, including weak institutional coordination, restricted legal coverage, political interference, corruption, and inadequate funding. The novelty of this article lies in its integrated comparison of constitutional recognition, legal design, and practical enforcement across three contrasting systems, showing that effective witness protection depends not only on legal rules but also on institutional autonomy and administrative capacity. The article argues that reform in Nigeria and further consolidation in India must be grounded in each country’s socio-political and legal context.]]>
<![CDATA[Petroleum Ownership and Administration in Nigeria Under the PIA 2021: Distilling Realities From Legal Rhetoric ]]>
<![CDATA[Ugochukwu Godspower Ehirim]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 1 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/v9speh78
<![CDATA[Controversy over the ownership, administration, and control of petroleum resources in Nigeria remains unresolved, particularly in light of the environmental degradation and social exclusion experienced by host communities in oil-producing regions. Although Nigerian law formally vests petroleum ownership in the Federal Government, persistent agitation in the Niger Delta suggests that this state-centric model has failed to secure legitimacy, equity, and stable petroleum governance. This article aims to examine the legal and theoretical foundations of petroleum ownership in Nigeria and to assess whether the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 (PIA) signals a meaningful shift from absolute state control toward a more inclusive governance model. Using doctrinal legal research and a comparative approach, the study analyses constitutional provisions, statutes, judicial decisions, international legal principles, and selected ownership models in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The study finds that the long-standing state ownership model in Nigeria has generated persistent conflict because it centralises legal control while excluding host communities from meaningful participation and benefit-sharing. It further finds that comparative practice in other jurisdictions demonstrates more flexible arrangements in the allocation of ownership rights, administrative authority, and resource benefits. The article’s novelty lies in its argument that the recognition of Host Communities under the PIA 2021 marks the emergence of a mixed or inclusive ownership logic within Nigeria’s petroleum governance framework, even though the constitutional language of federal ownership remains formally unchanged. The article concludes that sustainable petroleum governance in Nigeria requires a clearer legislative framework that consolidates host community participation, strengthens benefit-sharing arrangements, and aligns legal ownership with the practical realities of resource administration.]]>
<![CDATA[Entrenchment by Interpretation: Section 25 of the South African Constitution and the Failure of Socio-Economic Redress ]]>
<![CDATA[Cwenga Mayekiso]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 2 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/hdtc9308
<![CDATA[This article examines a paradox in South Africa’s post-apartheid constitutional order: a Constitution drafted to dismantle racial dispossession has become a principal legal framework through which the holdings that dispossession generated are secured. Although the 1996 Constitution is widely regarded as among the world’s most progressive, the property clause in section 25 and the doctrinal architecture built around it have narrowed the state’s practical capacity to effect structural socio-economic change. The article argues that this outcome is not the product of judicial partiality toward landowners, which the case law does not support, but the cumulative effect of four mechanisms: an expropriation doctrine organised around state acquisition rather than distributive effect; a compensation practice anchored in market value despite the multi-factor standard in section 25(3); a division of constitutional labour under which tenure security and housing are justiciable while ownership remains outside redistribution; and an adjudicative method in which the historical provenance of title, though available as an interpretive consideration and listed among the compensation factors, is an element of no operative test. The study applies doctrinal legal analysis within a socio-legal frame, reading five leading Constitutional Court decisions against transformative constitutionalism and critical legal studies. It finds that entrenchment operates through interpretation and institutional design rather than through constitutional text, which relocates the object of reform: were the barrier textual, amendment would suffice. The article contributes to debates on transformative constitutionalism by specifying, at the level of doctrine, how a redistributive constitutional mandate is neutralised without ever being formally denied.]]>
<![CDATA[The Role of Judicial Review by the Constitutional Court as Guardian of the World of Life: An Approach by Jürgen Habermas ]]>
<![CDATA[Rahmat Mokodompit]]>;
<![CDATA[Hartina]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 1 No. 2 (2025) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/137wzf49
<![CDATA[The Constitutional Court plays a strategic role in Indonesia's constitutional system through its authority to conduct judicial review of laws. This authority is not only technical in nature, but also determines the quality of legal legitimacy and substantive democracy. This article aims to analyze the role of judicial review by the Constitutional Court as the guardian of the lifeworld using Jürgen Habermas' approach. This study uses a normative method with a legislative and conceptual approach. The results of the study show that in a legal formation dominated by instrumental rationality, the law has the potential to become detached from the values and social experiences of society, thereby colonizing the lifeworld. In this context, judicial review by the Constitutional Court functions as a corrective normative mechanism that reconnects law with communicative rationality and democratic legitimacy. This article argues that the Constitutional Court can act as the guardian of the lifeworld as long as judicial review is conducted openly and argumentatively.]]>
<![CDATA[Voter Rights and Electoral Justice in Indonesia’s 2024 Concurrent Elections: System Design, Institutional Fragmentation, and Dispute Resolution ]]>
<![CDATA[Sulistyowati]]>;
<![CDATA[Erman I. Rahim]]>;
<![CDATA[Dewi Nadya Maharani]]>;
<![CDATA[Mahda Rahman]]>;
<![CDATA[Gusti Bintang Maharaja]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 2 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/2e11b149
<![CDATA[The 2024 Indonesian general elections were the largest and most administratively complex democratic exercise in the country’s history, combining presidential, national legislative, and regional legislative contests on a single polling day and holding regional executive elections later in the same year. This article examines the causal relationship between the design of the concurrent election system and the protection of voters’ constitutional rights, and evaluates whether Indonesia’s dispute resolution architecture is capable of delivering electoral justice. Using normative-juridical research supported by secondary empirical data, and combining statutory, conceptual, case, and comparative approaches, the article advances two arguments. First, the “five-ballot” concurrent design satisfies the formal dimension of the right to vote while eroding its substantive dimension: it imposes an extreme administrative and physical burden on polling station officials and a cognitive burden on voters, so that high turnout coexists with attenuated deliberative capacity, particularly in legislative contests displaced by presidential coattails. Second, the fragmentation of electoral adjudication among the Constitutional Court, the Election Supervisory Agency, the Honorary Council of Election Organisers, and the State Administrative Court generates divergent standards of proof, inconsistent characterisation of identical conduct, and gaps in remedial authority that are most consequential precisely where structured, systematic, and massive violations are alleged. Analysis of the 2024 election result disputes indicates a discernible movement toward substantive justice, but one constrained by evidentiary thresholds and procedural limits rather than by judicial willingness. The article contributes an integrated account linking concurrency, voter protection, and forum fragmentation, and argues that reconstructing the electoral calendar and unifying electoral jurisdiction are complementary rather than alternative reforms.]]>
<![CDATA[The Constitutional Duty–Administrative Capacity Gap in Forest Governance: Indonesia and Brazil Compared ]]>
<![CDATA[Tri Delvi GM Nggilu]]>;
<![CDATA[Fenty Puluhulawa]]>;
<![CDATA[Apripari]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 2 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/05ybef09
<![CDATA[Environmental constitutionalism obliges states not only to recognise ecological rights and duties but also to equip administrative institutions with the capacity to give them effect. This article examines how constitutional environmental duties are translated into forest governance in Indonesia and Brazil, combining comparative doctrinal analysis with empirical evidence from UPTD KPH Region IV North Gorontalo. In both jurisdictions, constitutional recognition does not by itself secure forest protection, but the two systems manage the resulting gap differently. Indonesia's unitary-decentralised model concentrates broad protective mandates in provincial Forest Management Units while dispersing coercive authority and resources; in North Gorontalo, nine forest-police officers cover approximately 110,811 hectares. Brazil's federal model pairs common environmental competence with statutory cooperation instruments, satellite-based enforcement, and a constitutional jurisprudence that treats the erosion of enforcement capacity as a constitutional concern, although its record also shows that such capacity is reversible. The article conceptualises this mismatch as a constitutional duty–administrative capacity gap, specifies when such a gap becomes a problem of constitutional implementation, and derives three principles: responsibility–capacity correspondence, alignment of authority and accountability, and cooperative environmental administration. Environmental constitutionalism, it concludes, remains institutionally incomplete unless the constitutionalisation of environmental duties is matched by the institutionalisation of administrative capability.]]>
<![CDATA[Blurred Standards of Review: The Silent Convergence of Wednesbury and Proportionality in Indian Administrative Law ]]>
<![CDATA[Arunish Gautam]]>
<![CDATA[ International Journal of Constitutional and Administrative Law Vol. 2 No. 2 (2026) ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Gorontalo Legal Research and Consulting ]]>
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DOI: 10.66502/srkjgz80
<![CDATA[Indian administrative law formally maintains a bifurcated standard of review. Following Om Kumar v. Union of India, proportionality governs administrative action that restricts fundamental freedoms or is challenged as discriminatory under Article 14, while Wednesbury unreasonableness governs action challenged as arbitrary, including the quantum of disciplinary punishment. This article asks whether that bifurcation still describes what Indian courts actually do. Adopting a normative-doctrinal method combining statutory, case, conceptual and comparative approaches, it examines the leading Supreme Court authorities on judicial review of administrative discretion alongside recent constitutional proportionality jurisprudence. It advances four findings. First, the “shockingly disproportionate punishment” standard is not a species of irrationality review but a truncated proportionality inquiry: it compares means with ends, asks implicitly whether a lesser sanction would have sufficed, and weighs the severity of the burden against the gravity of the misconduct. Second, structured proportionality adopted in constitutional adjudication has spilled into the review of executive measures, further destabilising the bifurcation. Third, the resulting indeterminacy is a rule-of-law problem, because the intensity of review comes to depend on how a challenge is pleaded rather than on any reasoned assessment of the right affected or the competence of the decision-maker. Fourth, this pattern is not peculiar to India but recurs across postcolonial and Global South jurisdictions that have received proportionality without articulating the justification for the intensity of scrutiny they apply. The article argues not for abandoning either doctrine but for calibrated review, sustained by judicial duties of characterisation, structure and justification.]]>
