Statute of Limitations

Basically, “every case has a time limit for filing a claim (omnes actiones in mundo infra certa tempora habent limitationem)”. The law enforcement process in the Vina case can be said to have taken a long time, namely 8 years.

In the context of Indonesian criminal law, crimes punishable by death or life imprisonment, including the crime of murder, have a statute of limitations of 18 years as stipulated in Article 78 of the Criminal Code. Although the inclusion of the statute of limitations clause Indonesian Criminal Code is not as progressive as South Korean criminal law, which has abolished the time limit or statute of limitations for murder crimes as stated in Criminal Procedure Act (Act No.341 of September 23, 1954). However, the Vina case has not yet reached the statute of limitations, so the public's demand for a fair investigation into the Vina case is a homework assignment for law enforcement that must be fulfilled.

It needs to be underlined that the investigation into the Vina case must be carried out based on careful legal procedures, and not based on the urging of public opinion circulating on social media. Every operational procedure for law enforcement, both at the investigation, investigation, prosecution and examination stages before the court, has been regulated in Indonesian criminal procedure law. At the police level, the time limit for resolving a case is determined based on the criteria of the level of difficulty, 120 days for very difficult cases, 90 days for difficult cases, 60 days for medium cases, and 30 days for easy cases. The time limit for resolving a case is calculated from the date of issuance of the Investigation Warrant as regulated in Perkapolri 12 of 2009 concerning Supervision and Control of Criminal Case Handling within the Police.

At the prosecutor's office level, handling a case takes a maximum of 20 days and can be extended for a maximum of 30 days based on Article 25 of the Criminal Procedure Code. At the District Court level, the settlement of criminal cases is completed within a maximum of 5 months based on SEMA No. 2 of 2014 concerning Settlement of Cases in the First and Appeal Courts.

All law enforcement procedures must be respected, including the police's efforts to name Pegi Setiawan as a suspect because he was involved and violated Article 340 jo 55 paragraph (1) 1st of the Criminal Code concerning Premeditated Murder and violations of Article 81 of Law 35 of 2014 concerning Child Protection. As long as the police's efforts pay attention to the principles of protecting the rights of suspects as the principle of presumption of innocence, then what the police have done so far must be appreciated as a form of law enforcement.