Restorative Justice at the Investigation Stage: A Normative Review of Its Conceptualization in the New Criminal Procedure Code

Abstract

This article examines how restorative justice is conceptualized at the investigation stage under Indonesia’s New Criminal Procedure Code and tests whether the new framework meaningfully constrains investigative discretion while safeguarding suspects’ rights and maintaining legality, equality, and victim protection. It proceeds from the practical tension between high-volume case handling and the need to prevent coercive settlements, as well as the theoretical tension between punitive proceduralism and restorative repair. The study employs normative legal research using conceptual and analytical approaches. Data are collected through systematic documentary analysis of statutory provisions in the new Criminal Procedure Code and relevant implementing regulations, complemented by international restorative justice standards and doctrinal scholarship. The analysis applies norm identification, element extraction, intra-system comparison, and coherence testing to assess procedural safeguards, oversight design, and rights impacts. The study finds that the new code reframes restorative justice as a legally recognized procedural pathway at the investigation stage, shifting practice from discretion-led settlement to a rule-bound diversion mechanism anchored in documentation and external control points. It further finds that the most consequential constraint on investigators’ authority is the movement toward judicially supervised validation of case termination, while residual risks persist in consent verification, classification consistency, and implementation detail. The findings support policy alignment across policing, prosecution, and adjudication through uniform standards on voluntariness, counsel access, documentation quality, and review criteria. Future research should evaluate operational compliance and the substantive rigor of oversight in high-throughput environments.