Reevaluation of the Concept of State Losses in Corruption (Analysis in the Perspective of Restorative Justice)

Abstract

The retributive justice paradigm, which forms the legal basis for eradicating corruption, is irrelevant to the law’s main objective against corruption in Indonesia. The spirit to save state assets must be based on restorative justice thinking oriented towards recovering from criminal acts rather than imprisoning corruptors. This study aims to examine the legal and political policies for eradicating corruption in Indonesia, where restorative justice can be used to restore state financial losses that can be recovered by the accused. This study uses normative legal research to answer the problems faced, and the authors use legal rules, legal principles, principles, and doctrines. The study results show that 1) the concept of restorative justice in sentencing perpetrators of corruption can be implemented by strengthening the norms of restitution for state losses from serving as additional crimes to becoming principal crimes. As for anticipating perpetrators unable to pay for these losses, the concept of forced labor can be applied instead of imprisoning perpetrators of corruption; 2) the concept of restorative justice in sentencing perpetrators of corruption can be implemented in the form of strengthening the norms of returning state losses from being an additional crime to being a major crime; 3) it is important to reform the criminal act of corruption immediately so that the restorative justice paradigm can be immediately introduced into the new legal norms.