Indonesia’s Revised Criminal Code and the Death Penalty – Progress Amid the Gloom?

Indonesia’s long-mooted revised Criminal Code, or KUHP (Kitab Undang-undang Hukum Pidana), was finally passed by the country’s legislature on 6 December 2022, although it will not come into force until January 2026. Since redrafting efforts began back in 1980, the death penalty has proven one of the most fiercely debated issues. The revised Criminal Code ultimately retains capital punishment as a discretionary judicial sanction but includes several new provisions regulating capital sentencing in arts 100 and 101. Based on statutory interpretation, post-Reformasi empirical trends and interviews with experts conducted in Jakarta over the past five years, this article traces the history of the Criminal Code’s death penalty provisions, provides prognostication on how the relevant provisions may end up being interpreted, and argues that the new regulations are more liberal than they might otherwise have been. Nonetheless, from an abolitionist perspective, there remain several concerning features of Indonesia’s new death penalty regime that future legislative changes or prosecutorial restraint might seek to alleviate. © 2023 The Author(s).