Bridging the Norm-Enforcement Gap: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Judicial Ethics Enforcement in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68211/nomosethica.v1i1.16Keywords:
Prosecutorial Supervision, Accountability Gap, Prosecutorial Ethics, Institutional Accountability, Transparency, Criminal Justice System, Legal Governance, Rule of Law, Ethical OversightAbstract
Judicial integrity is a fundamental requirement for maintaining the rule of law and public trust in democratic governance. Although Indonesia has established comprehensive regulations governing judicial ethics, ethical violations involving judges continue to occur, indicating a discrepancy between normative standards and their practical enforcement. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of judicial ethics enforcement in Indonesia by analyzing the norm-enforcement gap between legal regulations and empirical implementation. The research employs a normative juridical method using statutory, conceptual, and case-based approaches. The study analyzes major legal instruments concerning judicial ethics and examines selected cases of judicial misconduct during 2023–2024 to identify patterns of enforcement and institutional challenges. The findings reveal that Indonesia’s judicial ethics framework is normatively adequate and generally aligned with international principles of judicial conduct. However, the effectiveness of enforcement remains limited due to several structural and institutional factors, including reactive supervision mechanisms, fragmented authority between oversight institutions, inconsistent sanctioning practices, limited transparency, and weak internalization of ethical values within judicial institutions. These conditions contribute to the persistence of ethical violations and weaken public confidence in the judiciary. In response, this study proposes an integrated model for strengthening judicial ethics enforcement through normative reinforcement, preventive supervision, institutional integration, strengthened sanctions, and the development of ethical culture. The study contributes theoretically by introducing the norm-enforcement gap as an analytical framework for evaluating judicial ethics enforcement and contributes practically by offering policy-oriented recommendations to strengthen judicial accountability and integrity in Indonesia.
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