Judicial Review and the Supreme Court in Indonesia: A New Space for Law?

In his 2013 New Year's speech, the mayor of Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Suaidi Yahya, announced that his administration would enact a bylaw (peraturan daerah, or Perda) that prohibited women from straddling motorcycles as pillion passengers. The bylaw would require that women sit sideways on motorbikes unless they were driving. According to Yahya, the bylaw would prevent females from spreading their legs in public. Male drivers would thereby not be "provoked," and women would be protected "from undesirable conditions."1 According to Yusuf A.