Interpreting mens rea and academic freedom after constitutional court decision number 26/PUU-XXIV/2026

Articles 263 and 264 of the National Criminal Code, as amended by Law No. 1 of 2026, criminalise the dissemination of false and uncertain news. Four law students challenged both provisions, arguing that “padahal diketahuinya” and “sedangkan diketahuinya” leave the mental element undefined and chill academic expression. Using statutory, case, and conceptual approaches, this study examines the interpretation of mens rea in these offences, the constitutional boundary drawn by Decision 26/PUU-XXIV/2026, and the protection available to academics. The amendment did not create an actual-knowledge standard for Article 263, which its original first paragraph already contained; it closed the negligence and formal-offence variants and raised Article 264 to that standard. The Court recognised the students’ standing but rejected the petition by reaffirming Decision 170/PUU-XXIV/2026, without separately addressing gradations of intent, causation, imminence, or academic freedom. Read with the Elucidation of Article 36, “diketahuinya” requires actual knowledge and excludes dolus eventualis, so researchers who publish data they suspect may be wrong are not criminally liable under Article 263. Because this protection lives in the reasoning of a rejection decision, it must be carried into the new Criminal Procedure Code’s case-screening stage, enforcement guidelines modelled on the 2021 ITE Law guideline and the Press Council–Police agreement, and a statutory exclusion modelled on Article 433(3). Good-faith indicators should serve only to negate knowledge and should protect anyone who produces knowledge through verifiable methods, not only campus academics.