Criminal law and procedure in Indonesia is the body of Indonesian law that defines criminal offences and their penalties and governs how offences are investigated, prosecuted and tried. Its substantive core is Undang-Undang Nomor 1 Tahun 2023 tentang Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana, the Criminal Code (Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana, KUHP), which opens with the rule that no act may be punished except under a criminal provision in force before it was committed.^[1] Its procedural core is Undang-Undang Nomor 20 Tahun 2025 tentang Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Acara Pidana, the Code of Criminal Procedure (KUHAP), which took effect on 2 January 2026 and revoked the procedure code of 1981.^[2][3] Undang-Undang 1/2026 on criminal penalty adjustment, in force on the same day, amended the Criminal Code and adjusted the penalties in other statutes and in regional regulations.^[4][5]

Offences are also created outside the Criminal Code, in statutes such as the narcotics law and the waste management law, and several sectoral regulators work at the boundary between administrative sanctions and criminal enforcement, referring suspected offences to the police or to civil-service investigators.^[6][7][8] The Code of Criminal Procedure recognises both the police and civil-service investigators as investigators.^[9]

The new codes have been tested before the Constitutional Court. In July and August 2026 the Court decided nine petitions in the field: on the Criminal Code's offences against the President and Vice-President and concerning the state emblem, its false-news and incitement offences and its adultery and cohabitation offences, and on provisions of the new procedure code, the narcotics law and the law on electronic information. It granted two in part, rejected one and declared the rest inadmissible.^{[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]}

¶ The Criminal Code

Undang-Undang 1/2023 was promulgated as Lembaran Negara 2023 No. 1.^[19] Pasal 1 sets the principle of legality and forbids the use of analogy in determining that an offence has been committed.^[1:1] Pasal 2 recognises the law living in society (hukum yang hidup dalam masyarakat) as a basis on which a person may be held liable for an act the Code does not regulate. That law applies in the place where it lives, so far as the Code does not regulate the matter and it accords with the values of Pancasila, the Constitution, human rights and the general principles of law recognised by the community of nations; its procedure and criteria are left to a government regulation.^[20] Pasal 24 makes some offences prosecutable only on complaint (tindak pidana aduan) and requires each such offence to be designated expressly by statute.^[21]

Undang-Undang 1/2026, signed and promulgated on 2 January 2026, is organised in chapters on penalty adjustment in statutes other than the Criminal Code, penalty adjustment in regional regulations, and amendments to the Criminal Code itself.^[4:1] Its Pasal 1 removes the special minimum penalties (ancaman pidana minimum khusus) from statutes outside the Code, except those on gross violations of human rights, terrorism, corruption and money laundering.^[5:1] Among the Code provisions it restated are the offences of spreading false news and of spreading uncertain, exaggerated or incomplete news that causes a riot.^[22]

¶ Constitutional review of the Criminal Code

The Court heard several petitions against the Criminal Code together, holding joint evidentiary hearings after the House of Representatives and the President had given statements, and pronounced its decisions on four of them on 12 August 2026.^{[23][10:1][14:1][12:1][11:1]} The general procedure of such review, including the standing test and the formal filing requirements that decided several of these cases, is described at constitutional review in Indonesia.

¶ Offences against the President and the state emblem

In Decision 275/PUU-XXIII/2025 a group of citizens challenged Pasal 218 to 220, the offences of attacking the honour or dignity of the President or Vice-President and the rule making them prosecutable on complaint. The Court upheld the two offences, distinguishing them from the insult provisions of the colonial-era Criminal Code it had struck down in 2006, but declared Pasal 220(1) conditionally unconstitutional unless read to allow prosecution only on a complaint by the President and/or Vice-President.^[24][10:2]

Decision 27/PUU-XXIV/2026 applied the Court's 2013 decision on the Flag, Language, State Emblem and National Anthem Law to Pasal 237. It upheld Pasal 237 huruf b, which punishes making a symbol for a person, party, association, organisation or company that is the same as or resembles the state emblem, and struck down Pasal 237 huruf c, which punished using the emblem for purposes other than those regulated by statute.^[25][11:2] A second petition against huruf c, in Decision 73/PUU-XXIV/2026, was declared inadmissible later the same day because the provision had already lost its force.^[26][13:1]

¶ Speech and public order

Decision 26/PUU-XXIV/2026 rejected a challenge to the false-news offences of Pasal 263 and 264 in the wording given by Undang-Undang 1/2026. Relying on its earlier Decision 170/PUU-XXIV/2026, the Court held that both require actual knowledge, both are result offences requiring a riot in physical space caused by the publication, and all their elements must be proved cumulatively.^[27][12:2] In Decision 202/PUU-XXIV/2026 a petition against Pasal 246, which makes it an offence to incite others in public to commit a crime or to resist public authority with violence, was declared inadmissible on 16 July 2026 because the petitioners had filed no evidence and did not attend the hearing to validate it.^[28][15:1]

¶ Adultery and cohabitation

Pasal 411 and 412 make sexual intercourse with a person other than one's spouse, and cohabitation as husband and wife outside marriage, offences prosecutable only on the complaint of a spouse or, for unmarried persons, of a parent or child. In Decision 280/PUU-XXIII/2025 the Court held that the petitioners had shown no causal link between those provisions and any loss of their constitutional rights, and declared the petition inadmissible for want of standing without considering the merits.^[29][14:2]

¶ Criminal procedure

Undang-Undang 20/2025 was signed and promulgated on 17 December 2025 as Lembaran Negara 2025 No. 188, may be cited as the KUHAP, and took effect on 2 January 2026.^[2:1] On that date it revoked Undang-Undang 8/1981 on criminal procedure.^[3:1] It defines an investigator (penyidik) as an investigator of the national police, a civil-service investigator, or a particular investigator given investigative powers by statute.^[9:1]

The new code introduced a guilty-plea procedure (pengakuan bersalah). Pasal 78 confines it to first offenders, to offences punishable by at most five years' imprisonment or a category V fine, and/or to defendants willing to pay compensation or restitution, and Pasal 234(1) lets the prosecutor move a case to the summary procedure where the defendant admits the acts charged and pleads guilty to an offence punishable by no more than seven years.^[30][31] A challenge to those provisions in Decision 213/PUU-XXIV/2026 was declared inadmissible on 16 July 2026, because neither the petition nor its revision was accompanied by stamped exhibits.^[32][16:1]

¶ Offences outside the Criminal Code

The narcotics law, Undang-Undang 35/2009, gives narcotics investigators an arrest power limited to three times twenty-four hours, extendable by a further three times twenty-four hours under Pasal 76(2).^[33] A challenge to the extension in Decision 205/PUU-XXIV/2026, brought by a person arrested in a narcotics case, was declared unclear and inadmissible on 16 July 2026, because the alternative forms of relief sought asked for the same reading of the provision.^[34][17:1]

The law on electronic information and transactions, Undang-Undang 11/2008 as last amended by Undang-Undang 1/2024, carries its own chapter of criminal provisions and is described at data governance in Indonesia. In Decision 260/PUU-XXIV/2026 a civil servant sought a reading of its Pasal 4 huruf e, the statement that information technology is to be used to give its users and operators a sense of security, justice and legal certainty, that would oblige social media platforms to verify every user's real identity. The Court declared the petition unclear and inadmissible on 30 July 2026.^{[35][36][37][18:1]}

Undang-Undang 18/2008 on waste management sets minimum and maximum terms of imprisonment and fines for unlawfully importing waste and for waste operators who disregard the applicable norms and standards in a way that endangers health or safety or causes pollution, with heavier penalties where a person dies or is seriously injured, attributes offences committed for a corporation to it, and classes all of them as crimes (kejahatan).^[6:1] Civil-service investigators may investigate waste offences alongside the police.^[38] The statute is surveyed at solid waste management law of Indonesia.

¶ Administrative and criminal enforcement

Several regulators apply administrative sanctions that run alongside criminal liability. Permen LH 6/2026, the environmental supervision and sanctions regulation of June 2026, provides that suspension and revocation of a licence do not release an operator from civil or criminal liability, allows supervision reports to recommend criminal sanctions, and refers obstruction of supervision to civil-service investigators or the police.^[7:1][39] Its place in the licensing system is described at environmental approval in Indonesia.

Peraturan BPOM 5/2026, on the supervision of medicines at pharmacies and other outlets, requires an officer whose inspection indicates a suspected offence concerning medicines, including narcotics, psychotropics or precursors, to coordinate promptly with criminal investigators.^[8:1] It forms part of health sector regulation in Indonesia.

CRPG's regulatory tracker reported the Constitutional Court decisions on the Criminal Code, the procedure code and the narcotics law between August and September 2026.^{[40][41][42][43]}

¶ See also

• Elections and political parties in Indonesia
• Public administration in Indonesia

¶ References