Abstract The death penalty is one of the most controversial forms of sanctions in the modern criminal system. Law No. 1 of 2023 concerning the Criminal Code (KUHP) introduces a new paradigm by placing the death penalty as a conditional sentence whose implementation can be postponed for ten years, and opens the possibility of conversion to life imprisonment. This study aims to comparatively analyze the concept of the death penalty in the 2023 Criminal Code, the old Criminal Code (colonial legacy), and Islamic criminal law. The method used is normative-comparative research through a review of laws and regulations, doctrines, and classical and contemporary Islamic legal sources. The results of the study show that the 2023 Criminal Code applies a humanistic-progressive approach by emphasizing opportunities for rehabilitation and evaluation of the convict's behavior, in contrast to the old Criminal Code which places the death penalty as an absolute sanction without a conditional postponement mechanism. Meanwhile, Islamic criminal law regulates the death penalty in certain contexts through the categories of hudud, qisash, and ta'zir, with the principles of restorative justice, forgiveness, and consideration of public interest. This comparison shows a meeting point between the new Criminal Code and Islamic criminal law in emphasizing the corrective aspect, proportionality, and the opportunity for forgiveness. This research is expected to contribute to the discourse of criminal law reform in Indonesia and strengthen a more humanistic and contextual approach to punishment with Indonesian values.
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