This paper sets out a study of mental capacity in Indonesian criminal law, capital punishment and civil law. Indonesian Law Number 18 Year 2014 Regarding Mental Health (UUKJ) provides a new legislative framework for mental health issues within Indonesia that seeks to protect and rehabilitate mentally ill people.
Articles 71-73 of UUKJ are of particular importance because they attempt to clarify the legal framework for mental capacity evaluation in criminal and civil law. Mental capacity is the ability to ‘comprehend both the nature and consequences of ones [decisions and] actions’. Capacity concerns the ‘assessment of a person’s ability to make a decision, not the decision they make’. Mental capacity assessment is imperative to determining their legal standing in criminal law, capital punishment cases and civil law.
However, UUKJ is still in its infancy and its effectiveness cannot yet be ascertained, thus it is prudent to comparatively assess mental health laws throughout the Asian region to determine the best method of implementation in the future. This policy paper tries to show how Indonesian laws position mentally ill people and how is it compared with other countries.
The policy paper titled \”Determining Mental Capacity in Criminal and Civil Law\” which is written by Codey J. Larkin, student of La Trobe University, when received an internship in LBH Masyarakat could be accessed at this link.
