Kelsen vs Schmitt on Guardians of the Constitution Debates and the Impact on the Indonesian Legal System

Abstrak

This article examines the constitutional debate between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt during the Weimar Republic concerning the proper institution to serve as the guardian of the Constitution, as well as its relevance to Indonesia. Employing historical and statutory approaches, the study demonstrates that Kelsen assigned this function to the Constitutional Court, whereas Schmitt maintained that the President was better positioned to preserve the constitutional order in times of political crisis. In the short term, Schmitt’s position appeared more compatible with the political conditions of Weimar. In the long term, however, the collapse of Nazism and the postwar development of constitutional adjudication strengthened Kelsen’s model, culminating in the German Federal Constitutional Court as the guardian of the Basic Law. In Indonesia, the Constitutional Court was institutionally designed to perform this function, yet repeated ethical and legal violations by constitutional justices have undermined its legitimacy, independence, and public credibility.