Mahfud MD: Restorative Justice Comes From Indonesian Legal Cultural Wisdom

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD explained that restorative justice (rj) or restorative justice comes from the wisdom of Indonesian law. "Restorative justice is sourced from the wisdom of our legal culture," Mahfud said in the Commemoration and Award Handover of the 2023 National Police Commission (Kompolnas) in Jakarta, Monday, August 21, confiscated by Antara. The restorative justice is a solution of a criminal act by involving perpetrators, victims' families, families of perpetrators, community leaders, religious leaders, traditional leaders, or stakeholders to jointly seek a fair solution through peace by emphasizing the re-election to their original state. According to Mahfud, this restorative justice approach has long lived in the midst of Indonesian society. For this reason, this does not need to be formulated again.

"Well, in that society, because of our customary law culture, restorative justice and so on, it has actually been without being formulated, it has been carried out by the community and by the Police for a long time," he explained. Not only that, the restorative justice approach has also become a discussion discussed down to the intellectual level. "Now the formulation has begun to discuss the discussion, because it has entered cities, to the intellectual level to be used as a rule on restorative justice," said Mahfud. "So, there are many discussions, although actually that's what we have done together," he added.

To note, the basis for implementing restorative justice is recovery for victims who suffer from crimes by providing compensation to victims, peace, perpetrators do social work and other agreements. Definition of restorative justice is contained in Article 1 letter 3 of the National Police Regulation Number 8 of 2021. The benchmark for implementing restorative justice in Indonesia is based on the policies of the Supreme Court Regulation and the Supreme Court Circular. Restorative justice guidelines within the general court are regulated in the Decree of the Director General of the General Court of General Justice which was issued on December 22, 2020.