Child Filiation and Its Implications on Maintenance and Inheritance Rights: A Comparative Study of Regulations and Judicial Practices in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey

Abstract

This article analyses the national laws governing child filiation and their implications on the maintenance and inheritance rights of children in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey. This is prompted by the fact that the determination of child filiation in these three countries not only adopts singular fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) provisions, as some Middle Eastern Muslim countries do but also takes into account cultural values and human rights. Therefore, this article employs a normative-juridical approach by conducting a comparative analysis of the laws in these three countries. The research reveals that the laws in these three countries differentiate child filiation based on the marital status of the parents: maternity, biological paternity, and nasab (lineage) paternity. These three typologies of child filiation have implications for their maintenance and inheritance rights. The laws in these three countries stipulate that children born from valid marriages have both maintenance and inheritance rights from both parents, while children born from unregistered or non-marital unions only acquire these rights from their mothers. Although the laws in these three countries grant maintenance and inheritance rights to children born out of wedlock from the maternal lineage, some judicial decisions in Indonesia and Turkey grant these rights from both parents. The differences in judicial practices among these three countries are attributed to variations in legal systems and the Islamic legal schools adopted. Among the three studied nations, this article finds that the legal frameworks and judicial practices in Indonesia and Turkey are more accommodating to children’s rights compared to those in Malaysia.