CRIMINAL LAW POLICY ON DAYAK DOLOP CUSTOMARY OFFENCES IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF ARTICLE 2 OF LAW NUMBER 1 OF 2023
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Adat Dolop, Living Law, Article 2 of the Criminal Code, Customary Offence, Criminal Law Policy
Abstract
This study examines the position of dolop, the submersion ordeal practised by the Ngaju Dayak of Central Kalimantan, within the criminal law policy established by Article 2 of Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code. It responds to a gap in the scholarship, which has read the living law clause as a question of substantive criminalisation while leaving the adjudicative and evidentiary institutions of adat unexamined. The research is normative juridical, combining statutory, conceptual and comparative approaches, and analyses the 1945 Constitution, Law Number 1 of 2023, Law Number 23 of 2014 and related instruments, supported by indexed journal articles and published ethnographies. The findings disclose a recognition asymmetry: Article 2 paragraph (1) absorbs the substantive norms of adat and Articles 66 and 96 absorb its sanctions, but neither the Code nor its delegated regulation addresses the adat forum or its modes of proof, leaving dolop in a normative blind spot. Six collisions of vertical, competence-based, horizontal, certainty-based, human rights-based and procedural character are identified in the implementation chain, and a seventh consequence follows directly: the Damang who convenes the proceeding is personally exposed to criminal liability for the procedure through which the very norms the Code invites him to declare have always been enforced. The article concludes that criminal law policy should adopt filtered absorption, retaining the restorative core of dolop while withdrawing the ordeal, which fails the human rights filter. Its contribution is a four-component framework for testing adat institutions against the living law clause.
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Authors
Copyright (c) 2026 Ismansyah Ismansyah, Nilma Suryani, Siska Mandalia
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