Changes in the Regulation of Corruption Offenses in the National Criminal Code: Between Hopes and Challenges for Corruption Eradication in Indonesia

Legal reform is ideally aimed at producing better arrangements than the previous arrangements, as well as the regulation of corruption. The changes that occurred with the enactment of the 2023 National Criminal Code, changed the existing corruption arrangements. This study raises the formulation of problems related to what are the changes in the regulation of corruption in the National Criminal Code against the regulations in the 1999 and 2001 Corruption Laws and the implications of changes in corruption regulation for the acceleration of corruption eradication in Indonesia. This research is descriptive, using a normative juridical approach by analyzing legislation related to corruption as the main legal material, analyzed qualitatively using legal hermeunetics. Research findings show that changes in the regulation of corruption have resulted in dualism in the regulation of corruption in Indonesia, namely in the National Criminal Code as a general criminal law, then in the Corruption Law as a special criminal offense. This is contrary to the principle of “lex specialis derogaat legi generali”. In addition, the National Criminal Code also revokes several articles in the Corruption Law, abolishes the death penalty, reduces the threat of imprisonment and fines against civil servants and state officials as perpetrators of corruption, and has not provided legal certainty. The implication is that the National Criminal Code can be said to be less useful for the eradication of corruption, because it is feared that it will cause problems in the implementation of corruption eradication and justice in the future. Without denying some of the things that have been improved in the National Criminal Code, the existing changes tend to show the lack of seriousness of the Parliament and the government in accelerating the eradication of corruption in Indonesia.