Now that we've established that there will practically be no Bali boink ban under Indonesia's revised Criminal Code (KUHP), let's take a look at how current and future iterations of the code can actually be used to criminalize adulterers in Indonesia courtesy of a fresh case involving a public prosecutor and her alleged lawyer lover.
In the city of Bandar Lampung, Lampung Province, a man who goes by the initials VB reported his wife MN to the police on suspicion of adultery. She heads the General Crimes Section at the Public Prosecutors' Office in the nearby Pesawaran Regency, while he is a prosecutor in faraway Southeast Sulawesi.
Armed with VB's report, police in Bandar Lampung recently conducted a raid at a hotel where MN was believed to have been staying with her alleged lover, a lawyer who goes by the initials RM. With VB tagging along, police found MN in her pajamas and RM, who was on the bed without any pants on, in room 216.
RM denied that he was having an affair with MN, claiming that police found him doing number two in MN's bathroom at the time of the raid – hence the no pants situation.
Amid the possibility of the allegations threatening the careers of all involved (not to mention criminal charges against RM and MN if they were found guilty of adultery), VB today agreed to drop the charges against his wife and her alleged lover.
Adultery, in the sense of a married person cheating on their spouse, has actually long been illegal in Indonesia. Under the current KUHP, only spouses were legally allowed to report it to the police.
Under the revised KUHP, which is set to be implemented sometime in the next three years, adultery is still a crime punishable by up to one year in prison. But the law stipulates that only immediate family members (spouse, parents, or children), who may be negatively impacted by adultery or sex outside marriage, can report adulterers for the crime.
So, like always, be careful who you boink with.