KEDUDUKAN KETERANGAN AHLI DALAM PEMBUKTIAN PERKARA TINDAK PIDANA KEBAKARAN HUTAN DAN LAHAN DI SIDANG PENGADILAN

Abstract

Proof of environmental criminal cases is regulated in Law Number 32 of 2009 concerning the Protection and Management of the Environment in Article 96 which states that valid evidence consists of (a) witness statements, (b) expert statements, (c) letters, (d ) instructions, (e) testimony of the accused, and/or (f) other evidence, including evidence regulated in statutory regulations. The testimony of an expert who cannot be present at a hearing with valid reasons, the statement can be read out. If the expert's statement before being given in front of the investigator has taken an oath or promise as stated in Article 120 paragraph (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, then the value will be the same as the expert's statement stated in person at trial. If the expert cannot be present at trial, but has given testimony to the investigator under oath, then the expert's statement has value as evidence. The purpose of this study is to explain how the position of expert testimony in proving criminal cases of forest and land fires in Indonesia and to answer the problem of how the position of environmental expert testimony in proving cases of environmental crimes and forest fires in Indonesia can affect acquittals. This type of research method is legal research with a normative juridical approach that focuses on finding inconcretory laws, where this research aims to find laws specifically obtained through judge's decisions. The data studied are library materials or secondary data, and tertiary legal materials, then interpreted and analyzed qualitatively normatively in the form of regular, logical coherent, nonoverlapping and effective sentences, then discussed and presented descriptively. The environmental expert's statement determines whether the material requirements have been met to prove that there was a consequence of the defendant's actions resulting in pollution or environmental damage which can only be explained by an environmental expert.