Legal Literacy - This article discusses the concept of accountability in criminal law, including justifications, excuses, duress, forced defense, and excessive forced defense.

The Concept of Accountability in Criminal Law

Criminal law as a social engineering instrument stipulates that anyone who commits a crime must be held accountable. This is an implementation of the dualism stream. However, it must still be considered whether the perpetrator can be held criminally responsible or what is known as accountability.

Criminal accountability is the mental condition of a normal and healthy person to be able to determine intent before committing an act, to know whether the act is good or not, and to know whether the act is proper or not according to society. The factors for determining whether a person is responsible are reason and will. Reason means being able to distinguish between good and bad deeds, while will is the suitability between what the perpetrator's reason considers good and bad and his behavior.

In some cases, even though the aspect of actus reus is fulfilled, the perpetrator cannot be held accountable because they are incapable. Article 44 of the Criminal Code Criminal Code (hereinafter referred to as “KUHP”) regulates the conditions under which someone is incapable of being held accountable, including having a defective mind (mental retardation) and a disturbed mind due to illness. Furthermore, senility is also included in the scope of Article 44 of the Criminal Code. This condition will be determined by the judge with the help of experts so that the nature of the decision is descriptive-normative.