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AMICUS CURIAE
II. Amicus Curiae in Passing
7. “Amicus Curiae ” is a technical term from Latin that
is perhaps rarely heard in Indonesian courts. Amicus curiae
is a legal concept from the Roman legal tradition that later developed and was practiced in the tradition
of common law which allows the court to invite a third person to provide information or legal facts relevant to
unfamiliar issues.
8. Amicus curiae in the English language is called “friend of the court
”, meaning, “someone who is not a party to the litigation, but who believes that the court’s decision may
afect its interest
”
. Amicus curiae can be freely translated as friends of the court
or in Indonesian ‘Sahabat Pengadilan’, wherein an interested party in a case gives a legal opinion
to the court. The Miriam Webster Dictionary deines amicus
curiae as “one a professional person or organization that is
not a party to a particular litigation but who is permited by the court to advise it in respect to some mater of law that
directly afects the case in question”.
9. Hence, amicus curiae is submited by a person interested in inluencing the result of an action, but is not involved
in the lawsuit; an adviser of the court on some legal maters, who is not a party in a case, usually a person
who wants to inluence the result of a case that involves the wider community.
10. In the tradition of common law, the mechanism of amicus curiae
was introduced for the irst time in the 14th century.
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Then in the 17th and 18th centuries, broad participation in amicus curiae
was noted in the All England Report. From this report we learn of several descriptions connected
with amicus curiae: a. The irst function of amicus curiae is to clarify factual
issues, explain legal issues and represent certain groups;
b. amicus curiae , in connection with facts and legal
issues, does not have to be done by a lawyer; c. amicus curiae
is not related to the plaintif or the defendant; however, they have an interest in a speciic
case; d. permission [is needed] to participate as amicus curiae
11. In the United States of America, before the Green v. Biddle case at the start of the 19th century, the court
did not allow the participation of amicus curiae for a long time during court proceedings. However, since the start
of the 20th century, amicus curiae has played an important role in landmark cases in the history of law in the United
States, such as, in civil rights and abortion cases. In fact, in a study done in 1998, amicus curiae
, was used in more than 90 of the cases handled by the Supreme Court.
12. The latest development in the practice of amicus curiae is the application of amicus curiae in resolving international
disputes, used by both state institutions and international organizations.
13. In Indonesia, though, amicus curiae is not yet well-known
or used, either by academicians or practitioners. Up to the
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