## Facts

- Five individuals convicted of serious narcotics offenses received death sentences under Indonesia’s Narcotics Law (Law No. 22 of 1997).
- The petitioners filed constitutional review petitions challenging statutory provisions authorizing the death penalty for certain narcotics crimes.
- The Constitutional Court consolidated the petitions and issued a single judgment.
- Petitioners argued capital punishment for narcotics crimes violated the constitutional right to life, including clauses describing the right to life as non-derogable.
- Petitioners also relied on Indonesia’s ratification of the ICCPR, asserting international commitments required abolition or strict limits inconsistent with the challenged provisions.
- The Government and legislature defended the law, emphasizing the severity and social harm of narcotics trafficking; human-rights and narcotics agencies provided views to the Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the death penalty for narcotics offenses under Law No. 22 of 1997 violates constitutional protections for the right to life.
2. Whether Indonesia’s international human-rights obligations, including the ICCPR, require interpreting the constitutional right to life as prohibiting the death penalty in all circumstances.
3. Whether narcotics trafficking may be treated as an extraordinary crime justifying capital punishment under constitutional and treaty standards.

## Decision

- The Court upheld the constitutionality of the death-penalty provisions for serious narcotics offenses.
- The Court rejected the petitions and left the statutory framework authorizing capital punishment intact.
- The Court reasoned that the Constitution’s right-to-life guarantees were not interpreted as a categorical prohibition of capital punishment when imposed through law and due process.
- The Court concluded the ICCPR did not compel abolition as a matter of constitutional law because it permits the death penalty for the “most serious crimes” in retentionist states, and Indonesia had not committed to abolition through an optional protocol.
- The Court accepted the legislative characterization of major narcotics crimes as extraordinary offenses with grave public consequences and treated the death penalty as an exceptional sanction within a broader penalty range.

## Legal Principles

- A constitutional right described as non-derogable may still be applied within a broader constitutional framework that permits criminal punishment through statute and due process, absent an explicit constitutional ban on capital punishment.
- Treaty commitments are relevant to constitutional interpretation, but ratification of the ICCPR alone does not constitutionally require abolition where the treaty text allows capital punishment for the “most serious crimes” and the state has not accepted a separate abolition instrument.
- Legislatures may designate certain offenses as extraordinary crimes and prescribe heightened penalties when justified by severe societal harm, subject to judicial process and statutory limits.
- Where the death penalty is structured as a discretionary maximum penalty (not mandatory), reserved for the gravest cases, and accompanied by procedural guarantees (trial safeguards, review, and clemency mechanisms), it may be treated as constitutionally permissible.

## Conclusion

The Constitutional Court sustained the death penalty for serious narcotics crimes, holding that the constitutional right to life was not read as an absolute bar to capital punishment and that Indonesia’s ICCPR obligations did not constitutionally mandate abolition, particularly where narcotics trafficking was treated as an extraordinary crime and the sanction operated as an exceptional, discretionary penalty within a legally regulated process.


Sianturi v. Indonesia (Death Penalty Case), No. 2-3/PUU-V/2007 (Const. Ct. Indon. 2007)