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........

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