By: Rizki Kurnia)*
The Draft Criminal Code (RKUHP) will be ratified because it is urgent, basically the Criminal Code is very outdated. The Criminal Code is a legal product that was created more than 100 years ago, during the Dutch colonial period. Therefore, Indonesia must be independent constitutionally by ratifying the RKUHP.
The RKUHP is a bill that is currently being discussed by the public because it is planned to be ratified at the end of 2022. Many people are surprised, why should I change the Criminal Code as a book of criminal law in Indonesia? They do not understand that the Criminal Code needs to be changed because it cannot follow the dynamics of modern society, because it was made during the colonial period.
Deputy Minister of Law and Human Rights Edward Omar Sharif stated that there are 3 reasons why the RKUHP must be ratified immediately. First, the current Criminal Code was drafted 1800 or 222 years ago. At that time using the classic flow. Therefore the RKUHP must be ratified to replace the Criminal Code, because it uses modern law.
When the Criminal Code was drafted during the colonial period, it used the law of revenge because the suspect was the colonized party, and could be punished arbitrarily. This classical method is completely unacceptable to modern law, because it does not educate prisoners. They went to jail and were punished and did not get any lessons.
However, the RKUHP is made with modern law that focuses on fostering prisoners. Therefore, the term prison or prison is replaced with a correctional institution, because it will prepare prisoners for the community, so that they are given mental training and become new humans when they are released later. They are also given the skills to start a business.
If the Criminal Code was made 222 years ago then it is very outdated because the era has changed so much. It was the colonial period and the majority of the population worked in the agrarian sector. Meanwhile, Indonesia has been independent for 77 years and the population is partly active and working in the field of information technology.
In the era of information technology, it is necessary to have a law to protect the public from criminal crimes. Therefore, there are several articles in the RKUHP that protect them in cyberspace, in addition to the ITE Law which was deliberately created to regulate the activities of Indonesian people on the internet.
Deputy Minister Edward continued, the second reason for replacing the Criminal Code with the RKUHP was that the Criminal Code was not out of date . In a period of more than 200 years the times have changed greatly, so the law must also change. If there is no change, it is fear that many criminal acts or criminal crimes will occur, by taking advantage of loopholes in the Criminal Code.
The absence of articles that are in accordance with modern life is afraid of being misused by criminals and lest they carry out their actions and scare the public. Therefore, in the RKUHP there are new articles. For example, the adultery article will punish two people who are proven to have committed adultery and they will also give up showing it on social media.
Then, the third reason to immediately ratify the RKUHP is that the current Criminal Code does not guarantee legal certainty, because the book is still in Dutch and there is no official Indonesian translation. Later there will be different interpretations between judges and legal experts, and the fear will be different so that it will harm victims of criminal crimes.
However, the RKUHP is a legal product made in Indonesia and will be clearer if it is applied, because the contents of the book are in Indonesian. There will be no different interpretations because the articles and verses are clearly stated, so the law in this country will be much better.
Meanwhile, member of Commission II of the DPR RI, Johan Budi, stated that the RKUHP must be ratified immediately because it has taken too long, even decades. In fact, the draft RKUHP has been drafted since the New Order era. However, it was only during the administration of President Jokowi that the draft was perfected and it would be inaugurated into a new version of the Criminal Code.
In a sense, if it is not ratified quickly, it will be too long-winded and protracted. When the process is long and does not end soon, there will be potential crimes that are created, because there is no article in the old version of the Criminal Code. The community is also afraid that other bad things will happen if the RKUHP is not immediately ratified.
Therefore, the RKUHP should be quickly ratified because it will protect the Indonesian people from all criminal acts. The articles in the RKUHP will protect them, so that people’s conditions are safer and more comfortable. Moreover, the Criminal Code is too old and irrelevant to the dynamics of society in the era of information technology.
The public is expected to always support the ratification of the RKUHP because it will shape Indonesia for the better and reduce the potential for criminal crimes. The old KUHP was still in Dutch so they were afraid that the interpretation would be different, and the type of punishment would also be different. The RKUHP must be quickly ratified so that the community remains safe from all types of criminal crimes.
)* The author is a contributor to the Nusantara Reading Room
