The appellant sought to challenge the decision of the Makassar Religious Court (lower court), which had granted her one-half of the assets she had owned jointly with the deceased. The appellant had married the deceased on 1 November 1990, and they had remained married until the deceased passed away on 22 May 2008. The lower court had stipulated as the deceased's beneficiaries his mother and four siblings (the respondents), and two properties and IDR 50 million in life insurance as the joint assets of the appellant and deceased.
The lower court had ordered the appellant to transfer to the beneficiaries the other half of those joint assets, which constituted the estate of the deceased. In dismissing the appeal, the court cited arts 96 and 97 of the Compilation of Islamic Laws as a legal basis for the division of the assets, as well as the fact that, as the deceased was Muslim, his assets were to be distributed pursuant to Islamic law, despite one of the parties to the dispute being a Christian/non-Muslim. The appellant was ordered to pay court costs (IDR 86,000).