A Legal Review of Criminal Procedural Law Regarding the Complexity of Proving the Element of Ecological Loss in Court Proceedings

Abstract

Environmental protection and management constitute an essential pillar for ensuring the human right to a good and healthy environment. In practice, environmental criminal law enforcement frequently encounters evidentiary obstacles at trial because ecological loss is technical, cumulative, and scientifically complex. This article examines the position and challenges of Indonesian criminal procedure, particularly Law Number 20 of 2025 on the Criminal Procedure Code, in accommodating proof of ecological loss. Using normative legal research with statutory and conceptual approaches, the study assesses the relationship between the expanded evidentiary regime under Article 235 of the new Criminal Procedure Code and the evidentiary needs of environmental crimes. The analysis finds a persistent gap between the complexity of environmental offences and conventional judicial assessment. Scientific evidence, including laboratory testing, sampling protocols, pollutant-dispersion modelling, remote-sensing data, and environmental-economic valuation, often becomes decisive, yet judges and prosecutors may lack sufficient methodological literacy to evaluate its reliability. The problem becomes more acute in a battle of experts and in cases involving multiple sources of pollution, where causal attribution cannot always be established through linear and exclusive proof. The article argues for an objective validation standard, stronger judicial gatekeeping, court-appointed independent experts, and proportionate disclosure duties for corporations controlling technical data. Its novelty lies in linking the open evidentiary model of the 2025 Criminal Procedure Code with a specific procedural framework for scientific evidence in environmental criminal adjudication. Such reform is necessary to strengthen legal certainty, material truth, and ecological justice.