Analysis of Capital Punishment as a Last Resort in the National Criminal Justice System

Safaruddin Harefa — 2026-08-07

This study examines the evolving position of capital punishment within Indonesia’s criminal justice system in light of recent statutory reforms and persistent institutional shortcomings. Although Indonesia continues to retain and implement the death penalty, particularly for narcotics offenses, the enactment of KUHP 2023 and the emergence of the Draft Law on the Implementation of Death Penalty introduce a new conditional framework that formally positions execution as a last resort. Using a normative juridical method that analyzes legislation, judicial decisions, doctrinal writings, and international human rights instruments, this study evaluates the coherence of these reforms and their interaction with constitutional guarantees, fair-trial principles, and global penal trends. The findings reveal significant gaps between normative aspirations and institutional realities: inconsistencies in judicial reasoning, weaknesses in investigative procedures, ambiguous clemency standards, and limited correctional capacity undermine the reliability of capital sentencing. At the same time, the probationary model and conversion mechanism signal an emerging shift toward conditional retention that narrows—but does not eliminate—the scope of death penalty application. The study concludes that Indonesia’s current framework represents a transitional phase marked by partial alignment with human rights norms yet constrained by structural fragilities that hinder the realization of capital punishment as a genuine last-resort measure.

Humanistic Logic Theory: Reconciling Legal Certainty and Substantive Justice in Contemporary Legal Reasoning

Aris Prio Agus Santoso — 2026-10-24

The persistent tension between legal certainty and substantive justice reveals a fundamental limitation in legal reasoning: humanitarian values are often treated as external moral considerations rather than constitutive elements of legal rationality. This study develops Humanistic Logic Theory as a jurisprudential framework integrating logical coherence, legal justification, human dignity, vulnerability, proportionality, and substantive consequences within a unified structure of legal reasoning. Employing normative-conceptual legal research, the study combines conceptual, comparative, and hermeneutic-philosophical approaches to synthesize major traditions of legal thought, including Aristotle, Radbruch, Rawls, Dworkin, Alexy, Sen, and contemporary dignity-based jurisprudence. The analysis formulates four interrelated dimensions: Humanistic Logic, Legal Rationality, Humanity-Based Justice, and Ethical Equilibrium. The findings show that legally valid reasoning remains normatively incomplete when it disregards disproportionate human consequences, while humanitarian considerations require rational and doctrinal justification to avoid arbitrariness. An illustrative humanitarian-legal conflict further demonstrates how the framework makes tensions among legality, vulnerability, institutional responsibility, and substantive justice analytically visible. The principal theoretical contribution lies not in introducing entirely new legal values, but in reconstructing their relationship by positioning humanity as an internal criterion of rational legal justification. The framework also has potential relevance beyond domestic adjudication, particularly for global legal challenges involving human rights, socio-economic inequality, migration, public health, and technology-mediated governance in contemporary plural legal systems. Although its evaluative indicators remain normative-analytical and require empirical and cross-jurisdictional validation, Humanistic Logic Theory offers a transferable architecture for advancing legal reasoning from formal rationality toward human-centered rationality without abandoning legal certainty or the rule of law.

Contemporary Islamic Law and Legal Issue

Analysis of Capital Punishment as a Last Resort in the National Criminal Justice System

Humanistic Logic Theory: Reconciling Legal Certainty and Substantive Justice in Contemporary Legal Reasoning