Restorative Justice as an Approach to Discontinuing Prosecution of Criminal Cases

Abstract

Applying the idea of restorative justice to resolve matters in the best interests of the law is perfectly proper given the prosecutor's office's authority. By adopting the Prosecutor's Regulation Number 15 of 2020 concerning the Termination of Prosecution based on Restorative Justice, the prosecutor's office has created a legal breakthrough in the area of prosecution by implementing justice using a restorative justice method. This study aims to investigate the nature of using restorative justice as a model for ending criminal prosecutions and to investigate the model for doing so by Prosecutor's Regulation Number 15 of 2020 regarding Termination of Prosecution based on Restorative Justice. Normative legal research employing statutory, conceptual, and case techniques is the methodology employed in this study. The findings demonstrated that the idea of restorative justice offers a framework for thinking through options and choosing measures that align with the circumstances of those who commit crimes. The idea seeks to establish humanitarian justice by uniting offenders and victims to address issues that arise. Therefore, the implementation of Restorative Justice in Indonesia's criminal justice system is a component of the future-applicable criminal law system reform. Furthermore, according to the results of the first-semester evaluation, as of December 31, 2020, 271 requests for criminal cases wanted to be resolved through restorative justice. This indicates that the Prosecutor's Regulation Number 15 of 2020 concerning the Termination of Prosecution Based on Restorative Justice has had a very significant impact.