Constitutional Court Decision 308/PUU-XXIV/2026 is a 2026 ruling of the Constitutional Court of Indonesia on a petition for material review of two provisions of the new Criminal Code, Undang-Undang 1/2023: Pasal 272(2), which makes it an offence to use a false diploma, competency certificate or academic, professional or vocational title, and Pasal 622(8), which redirects references to the false-diploma offence of the national education law to that provision.^[1][2] It is one of the constitutional review cases pronounced by the Court on 29 September 2026, and concerns the mental element of an offence in criminal law at the point where it meets education law.^[3]

The petitioner argued that Pasal 272(2) did not make clear whether the offender must know that the document is false, and asked the Court to read the words "which he knows to be false" into it. The Court held that the word "uses", read with the general rule on fault in Pasal 36 of the Code and its elucidation, already requires intent to be proved, and rejected that part of the petition. It declared the challenge to Pasal 622(8) inadmissible as unclear, because the provision had been changed by Undang-Undang 1/2026 on penalty adjustment and the petition did not frame its object in the amended wording.^[4][5][3:1]

¶ Background

The offence of using a false diploma was earlier found in Pasal 69 of Undang-Undang 20/2003 on the national education system. As quoted by the Court, Pasal 69(1) punished any person who used a diploma, competency certificate or academic, professional or vocational title that was proved false, and Pasal 69(2) punished any person who intentionally and without right used a false diploma or competency certificate, in both cases with imprisonment of up to five years and/or a fine of up to Rp500,000,000.^[5:1]

The Criminal Code of 2023 recodified the offence in Pasal 272(2), which provides that any person who uses a false diploma, competency certificate, or academic, professional or vocational title is liable to imprisonment of up to six years or a fine of up to category V.^[2:1][5:2] Pasal 622(8), one of the Code's transitional provisions, provides that where a provision on the use of a false diploma or academic title refers to Pasal 69 of the education law, the reference is replaced by Pasal 272(2).^[2:2] The Court noted that the new wording no longer contains the express words "intentionally" (dengan sengaja) found in Pasal 69(2), and that the penalty had changed.^[5:3]

¶ Petition

The petition was filed on 12 August 2026, registered on 13 August 2026 and revised on 8 September 2026.^[6] It was brought by an individual citizen who, the Court recorded, was facing a criminal indictment concerning the use of a diploma or title; the Court held that this gave a specific and actual claim of constitutional injury and that the petitioner had standing.^[2:3] The petition invoked the rule of law in Pasal 1(3) and the guarantee of fair legal certainty in Pasal 28D(1) of the 1945 Constitution.^[7]

As summarised by the Court, the petitioner argued that Pasal 272(2) gave no certainty about the scope of the mental element to be proved, in particular about the link between the offender's knowledge and the falsity of the document, contrary to the principles of lex certa and lex stricta and to the principle that criminal liability requires fault. The petitioner also argued that Pasal 622(8) left the criminal law incoherent, because it did not also redirect the offence of unlawful use of a title in Pasal 28(7) read with Pasal 93 of Undang-Undang 12/2012 on higher education.^[7:1] The relief sought was a conditional reading of Pasal 272(2) to cover only a document "which he knows to be false or knows to have been obtained without right", and a conditional reading of Pasal 622(8) adding the higher-education offence to the redirection.^[7:2] The petitioner also asked the Court, by way of provisional relief, to expedite and prioritise the case.^[8]

¶ Ruling

The Court decided the case without hearing other parties under Pasal 54 of the Constitutional Court Law, finding the petition clear.^[9] It rejected the request for provisional relief as without legal basis, noting that the case was being decided without such hearings and that the petition had only been filed in August 2026.^[8:1]

On Pasal 622(8), the Court held that the provision had been changed by Undang-Undang 1/2026 on penalty adjustment (Penyesuaian Pidana), so that the 2023 wording could no longer stand alone as an object of review. Because the petition, from its heading to its relief, still treated the object as Pasal 622(8) of Undang-Undang 1/2023 without relating it to the amended provision, the Court held the object wrongly formulated, declared that part of the petition unclear (obscuur) and did not consider it further.^[4:1]

On Pasal 272(2), the Court held that the omission of the word "intentionally" did not mean that liability could rest only on the objective fact that the document proved false. Setting out the forms of intent recognised in doctrine, it reasoned that the word "uses" must be understood as part of the offender's state of mind, covering awareness of the act and its consequences.^[5:4] It then relied on the principle of no punishment without fault (geen straf zonder schuld), reflected in Pasal 36 of the Code, under which a person is liable only for an offence committed intentionally or by negligence, and an offence committed by negligence is punishable only where the law expressly so provides.^[5:5][10] The Court quoted the elucidation of Pasal 36(2), which states that every offence must always be deemed committed intentionally, that intent must be proved at every stage, and that intent may be expressed by words such as "knowing" or "which he knows". It concluded that Pasal 272(2) must be read together with the general rules on fault and criminal liability in Book One of the Code, that the absence of the words sought did not remove intent as an element to be proved, and that the argument of legal uncertainty was unfounded.^[5:6][11]

The operative order rejected the provisional request, declared the petition inadmissible (tidak dapat diterima) as far as it concerned Pasal 622(8), and rejected the remainder. The decision was reached in deliberation on 10 September 2026 by nine judges, with Suhartoyo presiding, and pronounced on 29 September 2026 in the presence of the petitioner or counsel and of representatives of the House of Representatives and the President.^[3:2] On the same day the Court pronounced decision 311/PUU-XXIV/2026, which read a notice requirement into the Government's power to cut off access to online content.^[12]

CRPG's regulatory tracker published an account of the decision on 20 October 2026.^[13]

¶ See also

• Constitutional Court Decision 26/PUU-XXIV/2026
• Constitutional Court Decision 280/PUU-XXIII/2025
• Constitutional Court Decision 241/PUU-XXIV/2026

¶ External links

• Decision (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• Case record (Mahkamah Konstitusi)
• CRPG: Intent in the Criminal Code Offence of Using False Diplomas: MK 308/PUU-XXIV/2026 (crpg.id, 20 October 2026)

¶ References