Kedudukan Asas Legalitas dalam Pembaharuan Hukum Pidana di Indonesia

The principle of legality is the oldest principle of criminal law and is almost found throughoutthe national criminal law in the world. The existence of this principle is simply to protect citizens from thearbitrariness of the authorities. The strengthening of the issue of human rights contributes to thedevelopment of the legality principle, both from national criminal law and international criminal law. The principle of legality is the principle in which a criminal act can only be punished if there are already rules governing before the criminal act occurs. However, in its development the principle of legality is no longer absolute, especially for special offenses such as corruption, drugs, terrorism and gross human rights violations. If a criminal act has occurred and there are no written rules governing it, then the principle of legality/retroactivity can be set aside with certain exceptions or reasons