The Ratification Of The New Criminal Procedure Code Causes The Potential Of Authority Of The Apparatus

The ratification of the draft Criminal Procedure Code or the Criminal Procedure Code has sparked concerns from civil society and academics regarding the potential abuse of power or abuse of authority by law enforcement officials.

The House of Representatives has ratified the draft of the Criminal Procedure Code as a law in a plenary session at the Nusantara II Building, Tuesday (18/11/2025). This ratification occurs when democratic activists consider several articles in the bill problematic.

Chairman of Commission III Habiburokhman said the ratification of the Criminal Procedure Code was a success because it took 40 years. However, the General Chairperson of the Indonesian Legal Aid Association (PBHI) Julius Hebrew said that the Criminal Procedure Code Bill could forcibly seize self-independence under problematic articles.

The Civil Society Coalition's Notes for the Criminal Procedure Code Update detail these problematic articles.

Article 16, the Coalition highlights how the DPR and the government include elements of screened purchases' (undercover buys) as well as shipments under surveillance (controlled delivery) into the investigation method.

According to the Coalition, these two elements were previously under the authority to investigate. And, the operation is also only for special crimes of narcotics. But in the Criminal Procedure Code, this authority becomes an investigation method, it can be applied to all types of criminal acts, has no limits, and is not supervised by judges.

"This broad unsupervised authority has the potential to open up opportunities for fraud by law enforcement officials to create a criminal act to manipulate who the perpetrators are, which is the purpose of the investigation stage itself to determine whether or not there is a crime," said the Criminal Procedure Code of Reform Civil Society Coalition.

Then in Article 5, the coalition said that all can be caught in a legal trap through the rubber article under the pretext of securing it. "In the previous Criminal Procedure Code, the actions that were possible to be taken at the investigation stage were very limited, not allowed to hold back.

However, in Article 5 of the new Criminal Procedure Code, arrests can be made, prohibitions on leaving places, searches, and even detentions, "said the coalition.

At the demonstration last August, police's actions in securing the masses returned to the spotlight. The Advocacy Team for Democracy (TAUD) found a number of patterns of repeated violations in the form of police violence, confiscation of personal goods without a court permit, arbitrary arrests, periods of detention that exceeded the limits, and non-transparent legal proceedings.

The incident, according to TAUD, shows how big the authority of law enforcement officers is in the context of 'security' and it occurs when the Criminal Procedure Code Bill has not been passed. The question is, what will happen when the authorities of law enforcement get bigger after the new Criminal Procedure Code is passed?

According to Komnas HAM's 2024 Year End Records, the National Police has again become the institution most complained of by the public. Throughout that year, complaints related to police actions were 663, far above complaints against the central and regional governments which reached 433 reports.

The most reported types of violations were violations of the right to obtain justice, followed by violations related to a sense of security (212 complaints). Meanwhile, Kontras also recorded 602 incidents of violence by officers from July 2024 to June 2025 left 42 people dead and 1,043 people injured.

Then in the report entitled Kertas Policy Hari Bhayangkara 2025: Kekerasan yang Meninggal di Tengah Penegakan Hukum yang Timpang disebutkan bahwa penembakan menjadi bentuk kekerasan terbanyak (411 peristiwa), diikuti penganiayaan (81), penangkapan antarif (72), penyebaran paksa (42), pencayaman (38), pengantasi (24), penjaminan (9), kekerasan seksual (7), dan tindakan tidak manusiaman (4).

The violence spread from Aceh to South Papua, with the five highest provinces including North Sumatra, East Java, West Java, Lampung, and South Sulawesi.

Deputy Director of Amnesty International Indonesia Wirya Adiwena said that the ratification of the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code by the DPR was a setback in protecting human rights. With this new regulation, it opens wider space for abuse of the authority of law enforcement officials.

Wirya said the process of drafting the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code took place without openness and manipulating public participation. "In fact, the DPR has just uploaded a draft of the Criminal Procedure Code which was ratified less than 24 hours before the ratification time," he said in a written statement.

This is considered to eliminate the opportunity for civil society to provide meaningful input. In substance, Amnesty assessed that many articles in the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code narrowed the protection for citizens.

One of the highlights is the provision that the right to legal aid is actually determined based on a criminal threat. According to Wirya, this is contrary to the basic principle of fair trial which requires access to legal aid at every stage, starting from investigation to detention.

Amnesty also assessed that the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code gave the authorities the authority to make arrests and detentions without a court permit, increasing the risk of arbitrary action as happened in the post-demonstration mass arrest wave in August 2025.

"This is a violation of the right to justice and justice," said Wirya.

Not only that, the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code also allows the arrest and detention at the investigation stage before there is certainty that a criminal act will occur. According to Amnesty, this rule puts citizens in a vulnerable position while the apparatus has very large authority without an adequate accountability mechanism.

For this reason, Wirya emphasized that the implementation of the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code starting January 2, 2026 without a transition period could cause legal chaos. "The current revision of the Criminal Procedure Code actually places the apparatus in the dominant position without an accountability mechanism, while residents are increasingly vulnerable to state arbitrariness," he said.