Mahfud MD Reminds Officials, Restorative Justice Can't Be Transactional, Becomes A Field For The Legal Industry

Mahfud MD as the Keynote Speaker at the National Seminar on the theme of Legal Citations (Photo: Public Relations of the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs)

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD asked all parties to be aware of the potential for transactional practices in the application of restorative justice or restorative justice when handling criminal acts.

This was conveyed when he was the main speaker online at the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) event, 'Equalizing Perceptions of Law Enforcement Officials Regarding Criminal Law Enforcement in the Perspective of Restorative Justice.'

"What needs to be watched out for is the application of restorative justice which has the potential to become a new transactional tool in resolving cases," Mahfud said in a written statement, Thursday, November 4.

He said law enforcement officers should not use restorative justice as a new field to industrialize the law where there are buying and selling practices in it.

"Oh, there's this, we've finished paying that much already. That's the name of the legal industry, he makes up the law but by buying and selling. That happens a lot, although in general it's not, but there are still a lot of them," said the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court (MK). .

Even so, Mahfud assessed that what was done by the Indonesian National Police, the Indonesian Attorney General's Office, and the Indonesian Supreme Court in implementing restorative justice needed to be welcomed as one of the breakthroughs in overcoming problems in the criminal justice system.

Moreover, this method is considered to be one way to overcome the classic problem in the country, namely excess capacity in correctional institutions.

"We need to welcome the application of restorative justice as one of the breakthroughs in overcoming problems in the criminal justice system, among others, in overcoming the overflow of prisoners in prisons because prison sentences are still the favorite punishment model of the judiciary," he concluded.