The Constitutional Court asserted in 2009 that Pancasila was a foundation of the state that could not be amended. As a supreme source of law in Indonesia’s legal system, Pancasila, which was founded 70 years ago, consists of five supreme principles that must inspire all legal, economic, political and social developments, including the spirit of pluralism of this diverse nation.

Broadly speaking, Pancasila should form the basis for legal and human rights development in Indonesia and hence an accurate understanding of Pancasila’s five principles is a prerequisite to understanding the scope of protections under Indonesian pluralism.

The five principles are considered “supreme” because Pancasila is the philosophical basis for the founding of Indonesia. Apart from being the ideology of the nation, Pancasila serves as the highest source of law in the Indonesian legal syst...