MENS REA AS THE BASIS OF DIVERSION IN THE CHILD CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM BASED ON RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

Restorative justice or more precisely keadilan restoratif in the Indonesian context is based on the principle of building joint participation between perpetrators, victims, and community groups in resolving a criminal act. The problem has been that in the formulation of the laws and government regulations diversion (diversi) is carried out if a criminal act is committed by a child who is punishable by imprisonment under seven years other than that if criminal acts that were committed by a child is not a repetition of criminal acts (recidive). A research using a normative legal research method found that through legal findings or rechtsvinding (penemuan hukum), judges can formulate criminal law policies through their decisions based on mens rea. Tt is a must for judges to settle criminal cases with a child of 12-years-old age perpetrator and/or the delinguent actor is a recidive via diversion. The provisions of Indonesian criminal procedure law dicates that judges are also obliged to seek diversion towards the settlement of all criminal cases whose actions were committed by children, both those with a criminal penalty over seven years and/or recidive or those who does not included in the two categories.