When Legislative Oversight Becomes Interlegal Contestation: Hak Angket, Public Maṣlaḥah, and Local Politics in Salatiga, Indonesia
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: What happens when an instrument of constitutional oversight is no longer contested because of its procedural legality, but because of who has the authority to define the public interest? This question emerged when the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) of Salatiga, less than one hundred days after the inauguration of a new mayor, activated hak angket for the first time in the city’s modern political history. This article aims to examine how hak angket (legislative oversight) in Salatiga evolved from an instrument of constitutional oversight into an arena of interlegal contestation. This study employs a field-based case study with a sociological jurisprudence approach, drawing on legal documents and semi-structured interviews with legislative actors, executive officials, bureaucratic actors, and affected community members. The findings show that hak angket in Salatiga no longer operated merely as an instrument of constitutional oversight, but evolved into an arena of interlegal contestation in which at least four normative orders interacted simultaneously: state legality, political legality, administrative legality, and moral legality. The study further reveals that executive actions justified through administrative discretion and social pressure created risks of administrative arbitrariness and rule by popularity, while legislative oversight derived additional legitimacy from maṣlaḥah-based moral reasoning. Theoretically, this article extends the study of legislative oversight by proposing interlegal contestation as a socio-legal framework for understanding local governance in Muslim societies. Practically, the findings demonstrate that the legitimacy of public policy cannot be measured solely through procedural legality or social acceptance, but must also rest on institutional accountability and sustainable public welfare.
Source: Reciprocal Interlegality Review
DOI: 10.66277/rir.1.1.256
Institution: Universitas Islam Negeri Salatiga
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7208739243