Ta’zīr bi al-Qatl for Narcotics Traffickers: A Critical Analysis of Supreme Court Decision No. 8144 K/Pid.Sus/2025 from the Perspectives of Fiqh al-Jināyah and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah

Ta'zīr bi al-Qatl bagi Pengedar Narkotika: Analisis Kritis Putusan Mahkamah Agung Nomor 8144 K/Pid.Sus/2025 dalam Perspektif Fikih Jinayah dan Maqāṣid al-Syarī'ah

Abstract

This article critically examines Supreme Court Decision No. 8144 K/Pid.Sus/2025, which imposed the death penalty on a recidivist methamphetamine trafficker, through the lens of Islamic criminal law (fiqh al-jināyah) and maqāṣid al-sharīʿah. Previous studies tend to affirm that capital punishment for drug traffickers is compatible with taʿzīr without testing that claim against concrete judicial reasoning or the post-2026 penal regime. Using doctrinal legal research with case, statutory, and conceptual approaches and uṣūl al-fiqh analysis, the article reconstructs the ratio decidendi and assesses it against four cumulative conditions of taʿzīr bi al-qatl derived from classical jurists: widespread harm (fasād ʿāmm), habitual offending, necessity, and evidentiary certainty. The decision convincingly satisfies the first two conditions but justifies necessity only partially, because the offence was committed while the defendant was serving a life sentence, which signals a failure of custodial control rather than the exhaustion of lesser sanctions. Maqāṣid therefore operates as a standard of evaluation, not of legitimation. The article argues that the death penalty with a ten-year probation under the 2023 Criminal Code, which considers remorse, corresponds to the fiqh doctrine of repentance (tawbah) and offers a more defensible middle path.