C. van Vollenhoven was the Netherlands professor of adatrecht (indigenous customary law) whose work Adatrecht supplied the theoretical framework within which D. W. N. de Boer wrote Het recht op den grond in Atjeh in 1931, and against whose conclusions on the Atjehnese beschikkingsrecht De Boer expressly argued.
Citations in the Atjehnese land-law literature
De Boer cited Van Vollenhoven’s Adatrecht at pages 164 (on the wathe revenues of the oeleebalang), 190 and 200 (on the absence in Atjeh of any requirement of village membership imposed on a clearer of waste land), 196 (on the strength of the beschikkingsrecht (right of avail over unappropriated land) and on “het eigenaardige recht”), 197 and following (on the Inlandsch bezitsrecht), 198 (on the restrictions upon that right of possession and on the absence of any adat-lawful rule permitting the oeleebalang to annex heirless estates), and 202 (on the neighbour’s right of preference in sales of land).
Points of disagreement
Two of Van Vollenhoven’s positions were contested by De Boer.
The first concerned the vitality of the beschikkingsrecht. Van Vollenhoven had written at page 196 that “een verbleekt of slapend beschikkingsrecht bestaat hier niet” — a faded or sleeping right of avail does not exist here. De Boer accepted this for Groot-Atjeh, the directly governed territory, but denied it for the zelfbesturende landschappen, where in his experience the right was actively exercised through the haq radja taléë, the haq thiplah-tano, and the control of boundaries between landschappen.
The second concerned the customary grazing arrangement by which a cattle-owner pastured his animals on another man’s field. Van Vollenhoven described this as “het eigenaardige recht,” declaring at page 196 that it might be a survival of a village beschikkingsrecht, and recording it at page 198 among the limitations on the indigenous right of possession. De Boer replied that in reality it was “geen recht… maar niet meer dan ‘n gebruik, gegrond op economische overwegingen” — not a right at all, but no more than a usage grounded in economic considerations: a sober exchange of economic goods, giving the cattle-owner free pasture near his gampong and the field-owner free manuring of his soil. The village, De Boer insisted, played no part in the sphere of rights in land in Atjeh.
Analytical categories
Van Vollenhoven’s tripartite division of adatrecht into grondenrecht (land law), schuldenrecht (law of obligations) and delictenrecht (law of delicts) underlay the organisation of De Boer’s study, which treated in turn the right of avail, the right of possession, the customary charges, the share-cropping and lease contracts, and the securities of pledge and mortgage.
Significance
Van Vollenhoven’s Adatrecht functioned in the Atjehnese literature as the standard of comparison against which regional findings were tested. De Boer’s disagreement with him on the Atjehnese beschikkingsrecht illustrates the characteristic method of the school: a general theoretical scheme, corrected in detail by officials with local judicial experience.
See Also
- Adatrecht (Van Vollenhoven)
- Beschikkingsrecht in Atjeh
- Milik
- D. W. N. de Boer
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (De Boer)
Source
Het recht op den grond in Atjeh, by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.