Pretrial Justice through Rawlsian Fairness: Comparative Human Rights Perspectives from Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the pretrial mechanism from the perspective of Justice as Fairness by John Rawls thru a comparative study between Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as to reconstruct a Pretrial Justice model oriented toward strengthening the protection of human rights. The research uses a normative juridical method with legislative, conceptual, and comparative approaches. The research results show that pretrial detention is a fundamental instrument for maintaining the balance between state authority in law enforcement and the protection of individual rights. Indonesia has shown progressive development thru the expansion of pretrial objects, while the United Arab Emirates implements a more preventive judicial oversight model thru the involvement of judges from the early stages of the criminal process. Based on these findings, the research reconstructs the Pretrial Justice Based on Rawlsian Fairness model, which is built on six pillars: equal basic liberties, fair equality of opportunity, proportional limitation of state authority, judicial independence, accountability of law enforcement officials, and the availability of effective legal remedies. This model emphasizes the importance of harmonizing the Criminal Procedure Code with the development of the Constitutional Court's jurisprudence and international human rights standards to build a more preventive, consistent, and accountable judicial oversight system, thereby achieving substantive procedural justice while strengthening the protection of human rights within Indonesia's criminal justice system.