Constitutional Courts and the Protection of Constitutional Rights: A Comparative Analysis of Institutional Authority in Indonesia and Morocco

Abstract

This article addresses a critical gap in comparative constitutional scholarship, which has predominantly examined constitutional courts through the lens of abstract judicial review while underexploring their institutional capacity to address concrete violations of constitutional rights. Existing studies indexed in Scopus tend to focus on single-jurisdiction analyses or regional comparisons, leaving cross-continental assessments of constitutional court authority—particularly between Asian and African constitutional systems—largely underdeveloped. This research aims to analyze and compare the authority of constitutional courts in Indonesia and Morocco in protecting constitutional rights, with particular attention to the institutional limits of norm-centered constitutional adjudication. The study employs a qualitative legal research method using a comparative constitutional law approach, drawing on constitutional texts, constitutional court decisions, and relevant scholarly literature. The analysis demonstrates that, despite differing constitutional traditions and judicial structures, both Indonesia and Morocco rely primarily on abstract constitutional review as the principal mechanism of rights protection, resulting in limited access to constitutional justice for individuals experiencing concrete constitutional harm. The findings further reveal that constitutional court authority in both systems is robust at the normative level but functionally constrained in addressing rights violations arising from administrative actions or judicial practices. The novelty of this study lies in its cross-continental comparative perspective and its reconceptualization of constitutional court authority as a functional, rights-oriented institution rather than merely a formal guardian of constitutional norms, offering broader implications for the design of constitutional justice mechanisms in emerging constitutional democracies.