Traditional Javanese law of the pre- and early-colonial period does not draw upon the contents of recognized texts, but -- as preserved and often explained in those texts -- on maxims (sloka/saloka) containing the essence of law expressed in pithy, easily remembered phrases, many of which live on as modern Javanese proverbs.

This is the second in a 4-volume set that provides the definitive account of the major issues of comparative constitutional law in Asian jurisdictions. Volume 2 looks at constitutional amendments and offers answers to questions about the formal rules for amending the constitution such as: - Who initiates an amendment proposal? - How is the amendment proposal adopted? - How are the amendments codified? and the neo-institutional questions regarding amendment practices such as: - Why is the constitution amended? - Who engages in the amendment process? - How does the amendment affect the political system and the society? Volume 2 covers 17 Asian jurisdictions including: Bangladesh, Cambodia, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, North Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand.

This book explores the ways in which Muslim communities across the Indian Ocean world produced and shaped Islamic law and its texts, ideas and practices in their local, regional, imperial, national and transregional contexts. With a focus on the production and transmission of Islamic law in the Indian Ocean, the chapters in this book draw from and add to recent discourses on the legal histories and anthropologies of the Indian Ocean rim as well as to the conversations on global Islamic circulations. By doing so, this book argues for the importance of Islamic legal thoughts and practices of the so-called "peripheries" to the core and kernel of Islamic traditions and the urgency of addressing their long-existing role in the making of the historical and human experience of the religion. Islamic law was and is not merely brought to, but also produced in the Indian Ocean world through constant and critical engagements. The book takes a long-term and transregional perspective for a better understanding of the ways in which the oceanic Muslims have historically developed their religious, juridical and intellectual traditions and continue to shape their lives within the frameworks of their religion. Transregional and transdisciplinary in its approach, this book will be of interest to scholars of Islamic Studies, Indian Ocean Studies, Legal History and Legal Anthropology, Area Studies of South and Southeast Asia and East Africa.

This volume together scholars specializing in different parts of the world to give us a comparative understanding of the persistence of corruption in some societies. The reader is privileged to learn from the many global variations that are skilfully presented for further analyses. Corruption is a salient feature of human condition in any organized society. Further, where risks are low and the returns high, corruption is almost inevitable. Apart from this, traditional public behaviour comes precariously close to what in the West might amount to corrupt practices. Bureaucratic corruption should be understood in the light of a clash of morality on the one hand and legality on the other. There is a contradiction between traditional values, which are held in respect and are a part of everyday life of a people, and norms of the larger society which stand out as compelling forces. The idea of the modern division between the public and private office is alien to a traditional culture and corruption finds space when this division is not strictly observed. Seven essays in this volume cover a range of countries which include India, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia. As the essays unfold themselves, the problem of corruption takes on an added dimension, that of a legacy left behind by colonialism. Please note: This title is co-published with Social Science Press, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Circulation networks -- Circulatory texts -- Architecture of encounters -- The Code -- The commentary -- The autocommentary -- The supercommentar -- The translations.

In recent years, Islamic law, or Shari'a, has been appropriated as a tool of modernity in the Muslim world and in the West and has become highly politicised in consequence. Wael Hallaq's magisterial overview of Shari'a sets the record straight by examining the doctrines and practices of Islamic law within the context of its history, and by showing how it functioned within pre-modern Islamic societies as a moral imperative. In so doing, Hallaq takes the reader on an epic journey tracing the history of Islamic law from its beginnings in seventh-century Arabia, through its development and transformation under the Ottomans, and across lands as diverse as India, Africa and South-East Asia, to the present. In a remarkably fluent narrative, the author unravels the complexities of his subject to reveal a love and deep knowledge of the law which will inform, engage and challenge the reader.

A major contribution to the understanding of Indonesian legal history. Hoadley shows how European colonialism skewed local legal institutions to serve colonial ends, and he discusses a fascinating series of cases that illustrate the evolution of this process.

Central Javanese temples were not built anywhere and anyhow. On the contrary: their positions within the landscape and their architectural designs were determined by socio-cultural, religious and economic factors. This book explores the correlations between temple distribution, natural surroundings and architectural design to understand how Central Javanese people structured the space around them, and how the religious landscape thus created, developed. Besides questions related to territory and landscape, Degroot's book analyzes the structure of the built space and its possible relations with conceptualized space, showing the influence of imported Indian concepts, as well as their limits. Going off the beaten track, this book explores the hundreds of small sites that scatter the landscape of Central Java. It is also one of very few studies to apply the methods of spatial archaeology to Central Javanese temples and the first in almost a century to present a descriptive inventory of the remains of this region.

In the literature on Indonesian legal history, the role of language has been paid scant attention. Even the replacement of Dutch by Indonesian as the official language of the law, surely a major event for the work of Indonesian jurists, has not been closely examined. Yet, since the early 1970s, legal usage and terminology have been the topic of a steady stream of highly critical publications by linguists and, remarkably, by jurists as well. Their criticism is focused on the heterogeneity of law language and terminology, and the deviation of legal usage from the official standard language. Government measures (language courses, law dictionaries) have not allayed this criticism. This study exposes two fundamental defects in the government measures and in the criticism itself. Firstly, they are grounded in an instrumental approach to language, an approach that sees language as a mere tool of the jurist, and as secondary in importance to the conceptual world that is considered law’s core business. Secondly, they greatly underestimate the impact of the declining knowledge of Dutch upon the development of Indonesian law language. Massier argues that the law must be viewed as inextricably bound up with the language in which it is formulated. Consequently, legal training and practice are examined in this study in terms of language behaviour and conventions, of learning, writing and speaking the languages of the law. The voice of the law in transition provides a language history of Indonesian law and its practitioners.

Since the first edition, Indonesia has undergone massive political and legal change as part of its post-Soeharto reform process and its dramatic transition to democracy. This work contains 25 new chapters and the 4 surviving chapters have all been revised, where necessary. Indonesia: Law and Society now covers a broad range of legal fields and includes both historical and very up-to-date analyses and views on Indonesian legal issues. It includes work by leading scholars from a wide range of countries. There is still no comparable, English language text in existence.