<![CDATA[This study analyzes the obstacles hindering substantive justice in Indonesian law enforcement and formulates a reconstruction of law enforcers' roles through Satjipto Rahardjo's progressive law perspective. It employs normative legal research using a library research approach, examining concepts, principles, and theoretical arguments on progressive law, drawing on Rahardjo's thought and literature on substantive justice, legal positivism, and law enforcement reform. Legal materials were analyzed using interpretive, inductive-deductive, and conceptual comparison techniques. Findings show that law enforcement in Indonesia remains trapped in a legal-positivistic paradigm oriented toward formal legal certainty, failing to deliver substantive justice, particularly for vulnerable groups. Three main obstacles were identified: the elitist and exclusive character of the legal system, which restricts ordinary people's access to justice; the dominance of legal-positivistic thinking among law enforcement officers, reducing them to mere "mouthpieces of the law"; and systemic judicial disparity arising from judicial discretion exercised without adequate moral or social consideration. Based on these findings, the study formulates a reconstruction of law enforcers across three interrelated dimensions requiring simultaneous implementation: structural (institutional independence, oversight, and accountability), substantive (regulatory harmonization and progressive interpretation grounded in justice, expediency, and Pancasila values), and cultural (moral integrity, interpretive courage, and social empathy). The study concludes that comprehensive reconstruction across these three dimensions is essential for law enforcers to transform from mere executors of statutory text into creators of justice, capable of proportionally balancing state, societal, and individual interests.]]>
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