TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsHouse passes revised KUHAP despite abuse of authority concerns
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Lawmakers attend a House of Representatives plenary session on July 1 at the Senayan legislative complex in Central Jakarta. (Antara/Dhemas Reviyanto)
T
he House of Representatives has passed the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) bill into law despite mounting pushback from civil society groups over some provisions they fear could pave the way for abuse of power.
In a plenary session on Tuesday, House Speaker Puan Maharani banged the gavel twice after all eight political parties in the House, and the government, approved of the bill, which will take effect on Jan. 2 next year.
The bill was first drafted in November last year, a month after President Prabowo Subianto was elected. It was later included among this year’s priority bills in February to complement the new Criminal Code (KUHP), which was passed in 2022 and will also take effect in January 2026.
Throughout the deliberations of the revision to criminal procedure law over the past year, however, civil groups have accused the House of rushing the process and introducing provisions that allegedly expanded law enforcement’s authority on preliminary investigations.
According to the House’s final draft of the bill dated Tuesday, Article 16 stipulates that investigators can conduct “undercover buying” and “controlled delivery” during a preliminary investigation.
The two methods were previously designed for narcotics cases only, an expansion which alarmed civil groups like the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI).
“This broadening authority without oversight has the potential to open up opportunities for entrapment by law enforcement authorities to engineer a criminal act by manipulating the perpetrators,” YLBHI executive director Muhammad Isnur told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
