Annulment of Land Title Transfer Pursuant to Court Ruling

In many land-related cases, it is often found that court rulings do not annul land ownership certificates themselves, but only invalidate the record of ownership transfer associated with the certificate. Generally, the certificate is not handed over by the losing party to the Land Office, which makes it difficult for the Land Office to update the juridical data in the land book and certificate in accordance with prevailing regulations. This situation creates legal uncertainty for the winning party, who—based on a final and binding court decision—should be entitled to legal protection. Regulations do not clearly mandate that the losing party must submit the certificate to the panel of judges, to the winning party, or to the local Land Office. Furthermore, the court’s ruling usually does not include any order to impose a seizure for security (sita jaminan) or other directive if the certificate is not submitted by the losing party. This clearly contributes to legal uncertainty for the winning party, who has invested significant time, effort, thought, and financial resources in seeking justice through the judicial system.The element of legal certainty for the winning party remains questionable, even though a final and binding court decision should serve as a strong legal basis for the Land Office to cancel the transfer of land rights. Therefore, it is important to examine the mechanism for cancelling the transfer of land ownersship based on a court decission when the certificate is not handed over by the losing party.