Critical Legal Studies on Wiretapping or Interception in the Indonesian Legal System

Abstract

Critical Legal Studies (CLS) emerged as a theoretical approach that challenges traditional concepts and raises critical questions regarding justice, power, and legal structures. This study focuses on Critical Legal Studies of wiretapping or interception in the Indonesian legal system and examines how CLS can critique the wiretapping case conducted by investigators of the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) under the order of Antasari Azhar. This research is a normative juridical legal study, which positions law as a set of rules or norms embodied in legislation, court decisions, legal doctrines, and other sources of law, and employs qualitative analysis. The tendency for abuse of wiretapping is highly likely due to its secret nature, and wiretapping constitutes an intrusion of somebody’s privacy, even though what is intruded upon and taken by law enforcement officers cannot be physically and visibly seen, except for the recordings of individuals’ conversations. Political involvement is reflected in the wiretapping case ordered by Antasari Azhar. This wiretapping became an instrument used to maintain the position of an institutional leader who was being threatened, under the pretext of facilitating the work of the KPK, although the head of the anti-corruption agency was under terror at that time. Although framed in the context of “security,” it was not based on any report or suspicion that a corruption crime had occurred or would occur. In addition, the importance of legal language needs to be highlighted in this context