Delict comes from the Latin delictum (delict) called strafbaar feit or crime. In another sense, according to Van Hamel, it is stated that strafbaar feit is a person’s behavior (menselijke gedraging) which is formulated in wet, which is against the law, which deserves to be punished (straaf waardig) and committed with a mistake, thus an offense is an act or action that prohibited and threatened with punishment or criminal by law.
Meanwhile, according to experts, offenses were put forward by several legal experts as follows:
- Achmad Ali: A general understanding of all acts that violate the law or the law without distinguishing whether the violation is in the field of private law or public law, including criminal law.
- Utrecht uses the term criminal event because the term event includes an act (handelen or doen) or a neglect (verzuin or nalaten) as well as its consequences (conditions caused by the act or neglect), and a criminal event is a legal event, namely an event society that brings consequences regulated by law
- Andi Zainal Abidin Farid: using the term criminal event with the formulation that a criminal event is an act that is punishable by a criminal offense, against the law carried out with an error by a person who can be held accountable for the act.
- According to Moeljatno: using the term criminal act which is formulated which is defined as an act that is prohibited by a rule of law accompanied by threats (sanctions) in the form of certain crimes, for anyone who violates the prohibition.
- Prof. Simons: defines offense as an unlawful act that has been committed intentionally or unintentionally by someone whose action can be accounted for and by law has been declared an act that can be punished.
With regard to the principle of criminal law, namely Geen straf zonder schuld, actus non facit reum nisi mens sir rea, that if there is no crime, the definition of a crime is separate from what is meant by criminal liability.
Criminal acts only refer to being prohibited and threatening the act with a crime, then whether the person who commits the act is also sentenced to be punished as threatened will depend on whether in committing the act the perpetrator also has an error.
In most formulations of criminal acts, the element of intent or what is called opzet is one of the most important elements. In relation to this intentional element, if in a formulation of a criminal act there is an act intentionally or commonly referred to as opzettelijk, then this element of intention dominates or includes all other elements placed behind it and must be proven.
Deliberately means that there is a conscious will that is intended to commit a certain crime. So with regard to proving that the act he did was done intentionally, it contains the notion of wanting and knowing or commonly referred to as willens en wetens. What is meant here is that someone who commits an act intentionally must fulfill the Willens formula or must want what he is doing and fulfill the wettens element or must know the consequences of what he did.
Here it is associated with the will theory formulated by Von Hippel, it can be said that what is meant by intentional is the will to make an action and the will to cause a result of that act or the consequences of that act which is the intention of doing the act.
If the element of will or wills and knows in relation to the element of intentionality cannot be clearly proven materially -because it is indeed difficult to prove a person’s intention and will materially, then proving that there is an element of intentionality in the perpetrator committing an unlawful act so that his actions can be accounted for to the perpetrator. often only associated with the circumstances and actions of the perpetrator at the time he committed the unlawful act he was accused of.
The formulation of corruption offenses in “special rules” is only part of the overall criminal law system (criminal system). The formulation of the offense (both the elements, the type of offense, as well as the type of punishment/sanction and the length of the sentence) is not a stand-alone system. Therefore, the formulation of the offense still has to be supported by other parts of the system, namely the rules/guidelines and the principles of punishment contained in the general rules of the Criminal Code or special rules in the relevant special law.
Source:
KukuSyukur, Kunkun Abdul. “PEMBUKTIAN UNSUR NIAT DIKAITKAN DENGAN UNSUR MENS REA DALAM TINDAK PIDANA KORUPSI.” Jurnal Ilmiah Galuh Justisi 3.2 (2015): 218-228.