Abstract
Land consolidation in Indonesia has largely been carried out under ministerial regulations, while sectoral statutes mention it only in passing. Yet the activity alters the location, shape, and size of land parcels and sets aside part of participants’ land for public use. This article examines why restricting land rights through land consolidation requires a statutory basis and cannot rest on ministerial regulations or passing references in sectoral laws. This normative legal research employs statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches, with Japan as the main comparator and China as a supporting one. The analysis covers the constitutional requirement that restrictions on rights be established by statute, the weaknesses of the existing regulation, and the Japanese land readjustment model, which is governed by a dedicated statute and integrated with urban planning and public facility provision. The study yields three findings. First, a Land Consolidation Act is needed as a valid legal basis for restricting land rights, because a ministerial regulation cannot serve as the source of such restrictions. Second, the Act is needed to overcome sectoral egoism through firm institutional integration among land affairs, spatial planning, housing, and local government. Third, the Act is needed to package land arrangement together with the development of public infrastructure, facilities, and utilities (PSU), so that public facility provision does not proceed separately from parcel reorganization. The article concludes that enacting a dedicated land consolidation statute is an urgent legal necessity.
