REDEFINING PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SPACE IN CONTEMPORARY CRIMINAL LAW: DECENCY OFFENSES, COMPLAINT REQUIREMENTS, AND PRIVACY UNDER LAW NUMBER 1 OF 2023

Abstract

This study aims to doctrinally examine the implications of shifting the qualification of morality offenses—specifically adultery and cohabitation—into absolute complaint offenses (absoluut klacht delict) under Law Number 1 of 2023 on the National Penal Code, and to reconstruct its impact on safeguarding citizens' constitutional right to privacy. Employing a normative legal research method with statutory and conceptual approaches, this study finds that the shift in normative status serves as a transformative legal policy instrument designed to deconstruct the threat of over-criminalization and dismantle legal justifications for vigilante acts (eigenrichting). The limitation of legal standing for complaints, granted exclusively to the nuclear family, reflects the state's application of the judicial restraint principle, thereby returning criminal mechanisms to their essence as the ultimum remedium. Furthermore, this regulatory construction successfully formulates an ideal proportionality between the supremacy of universal human rights guarantees and the preservation of the moral order within Indonesia's communal society. This paradigm shift also incorporates the double track system and restorative justice, where the dispute resolution mechanism is directed toward conflict resolution that restores sociological family bonds rather than focusing on retributive imprisonment.