Indonesia’s overhaul of its Criminal Procedure Code could modernise justice – or entrench a system where police power expands, judicial oversight shrinks and civic life becomes riskier. With the clock ticking towards implementation, the choices made now will shape Indonesia’s democratic identity for decades.

Laws are not static. They serve as the framework Indonesian society builds around liberty, determining who wakes to the light of day and who vanishes into the machinery of the state. Indonesia’s 2025 rewrite of its Criminal Procedure Code (RUU KUHAP) is one of those frameworks being reconstructed right now, and the stakes could not be higher. If done well, KUHAP could modernise procedures, enhance victims’ protections, and close colonial-era gaps. If done poorly, it will grant the police extensive discretion, weaken judicial oversight, and turn ordinary civic life into a gamble. Some analysis of the bill and of campaigning by legal NGOs indicates that the danger is real and immediate.

The core issue is a simple shift in where power resides. The draft positions the National Police (Polri) as the main investigator and – in narrowly drafted language that critics say is dangerously broad – permits temporary TNI involvement in certain investigations.

Civil society groups warn this reallocation institutionalises ‘super-power’ policing: arrest, detention, and the initial, decisive investigative steps are now concentrated within an enforcement chain rather than being overseen by an independent magistrate. Critics from the legal aid community and reform think tanks have pointed out that these textual choices closely resemble historic patterns of overreach.

The problem becomes clearer when you look at timing. Indonesia’s revised substantive Criminal Code (KUHP) is due to come into force in early 2026, creating pressure to finish KUHAP in 2025. Officials have signalled urgency: ministers and parliamentary committees fast-tracked deliberations, arguing legal coherence requires speed.

But haste in the architecture of coercion is not a virtue; it is a risk multiplier. When deliberation is compressed, crucial safeguards – narrow definitions of “urgency”, binding judicial pre-authorisation for detention, tight rules for surveillance – can be jettisoned or rendered vague.

Why does any of this matter outside Jakarta’s law schools? Because prompt judicial oversight is not academic hair-splitting – it is the firewall that prevents arbitrary deprivation of liberty. United Nations guidance, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, treats 48 hours as the ordinary maximum before judicial review; deviations must be exceptional and justified. RUU KUHAP’s draft language, however, appears to loosen that firewall by expanding urgency exceptions and permitting internal prosecutorial or police approvals in place of ex-ante magistrate sign-off. That widens the moment when the state can hold a person without independent scrutiny.

The abstract danger is already concrete. International monitors and rights groups have documented a pattern of crowd control, arrests and digital repression in 2024–25: Amnesty and reporting partners catalogued hundreds of protest-related arrests, scores of injuries and a catalogue of digital threats against journalists and activists. Those enforcement patterns – matched to a KUHAP that increases pre-trial discretion and widens covert authorities – make chilling effects likely, not merely possible. In practice, activists, students, trade-unionists and investigative journalists will face the arithmetic of risk: organise and you may be surveilled, arrested and held longer before a judge. The result is self-censorship, clandestine organising and a thinner public square.

Indonesia can chart a more confident and humane course by reaffirming simple but essential safeguards: ensuring that any detention beyond a brief emergency window receives clear judicial approval; defining ‘urgency’ narrowly so it applies only to genuine threats to life, evidence, or flight; guaranteeing immediate access to legal counsel; and protecting the integrity of investigations through recorded interrogations and independent digital oversight.

A firm separation of civilian justice from TNI involvement, tightly limited covert authorities, and a commitment to transparency – from public reporting of arrests to open data on surveillance and use of force – would help rebuild trust. Strengthening the skills of prosecutors and magistrates, standardising forensic procedures, and applying strict proportionality in crowd control are equally vital. So, too, are modern protections for expression, regulated forensic technologies, empowered regional ombuds offices and strong whistleblower safeguards.

With independent inquiries into any protest-related deaths and a clear national timetable for implementing reforms under parliamentary and civil-society scrutiny, Indonesia can demonstrate that security and dignity need not be in tension – they can rise together when the state chooses accountability.

These are not radical; they are the levers many democracies use to balance investigatory effectiveness with rights protections.

This is not merely an internal contest about constitutional technique. There are geopolitical and reputational implications. Democracies that weaken procedural safeguards risk erosion of investor confidence, diplomatic friction with rights-sensitive partners, and a declining ability to credibly champion rule-of-law initiatives in the region. Indonesia’s neighbours – and its civil society – will watch whether the state chooses institutions that protect liberty or mechanisms that centralise coercion. The choice will shape Indonesia’s democratic identity for a generation.

There is still time to steer this arc back towards protection. That requires political bravery: a public halt to the most expansive powers, an independent review commission with judicial, civil society, and policing voices, and fast-tracked amendments that bind judicial review and reduce discretion. Lawmakers who value order and those who value liberty should find common ground: neither desires a legal regime that fuels grievance or undermines legitimacy.

Rights are the quiet architecture of freedom – they protect a person’s dignity, check the state’s power, and keep democracy breathing. When those protections weaken at home, a nation not only fails its people but also loses the moral authority and trust it needs to lead and partner abroad. This moment calls for a simple moral stance in politics: the law must serve liberty, not be a tool for fear. Indonesia’s leaders can either let procedural law become a blunt instrument or choose the more difficult – and nobler – task of designing checks that keep power honest.

For Indonesia’s democracy and the region that looks to it, let’s hope they make the right choice.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.

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