Maria Farida Indrati

Maria Farida Indrati
Official portrait
Justice of the Indonesian Constitutional Court
In office 2008–2009
Appointed by	Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Personal details
Born	(1949-06-14) June 14, 1949 (age 67) Surakarta, Indonesia
Nationality	Indonesian
Religion	Catholic

Maria Farida Indrati, S.H., M.H. (referred to as Farida; born 14 June 1949) is a justice on the Constitutional Court of Indonesia serving her second term. She is currently the only woman among the Court's nine members.

Farida was born in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia on 14 June 1949; she is the eldest of eight children born to an Antara reporter and his wife. As a child, she studied under Catholic nuns. Because she suffered from polio, she initially wanted to be a pianist. However, due to her father's disapproval, she studied law at the University of Indonesia, receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1975. Studying under Hamid Attamimi, the "founder of the Indonesian Constitution Science", she decided to stay in law.

Farida received her notary public's degree in 1982. She later received a Master of Laws degree from the same institution in 1997, finishing her doctorate studies in 2002. She has also taken non-formal courses on law making in Leiden, Vrije Universiteit, Boston, and San Francisco.

Farida initially worked to draft legislation.

She first served as a justice of the Constitutional Court after she was requested to do so by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2008; she had previously been asked by eight different women's rights organisations, but had refused. She is the nine-member court's first, as of 2010 only, female justice. During the constitutional court's appraisal of the Bill against Pornography and Pornoaction, she headed the three member specialty panel. Of the three, she was the only one to question its necessity, saying that the law was "open to too many interpretations, the definition of pornography [too] ambiguous, ... divisive and bound to be difficult to implement," and noting that traditional dances like Jaipongan could fall under its definition. She has also dissented in cases regarding blasphemy law and a quota for legislative seats for women. She was initially expected to serve until 2013.