Is there any "delik aduan"-like laws in the west?

Question

In Indonesia there are laws called "delik aduan", according to which certain acts are crimes only if someone files a complaint.

These are like civil laws in that someone has to file a complaint, but the punishable acts are like crimes ("pidana") in that the penalties include incarceration.

One such law concerns defamation, which only is a crime if someone that feels hurt by some speech reports it and sues. Otherwise it is not, meaning that law enforcement will not search for or prosecute defamatory speech. Another such law concerns adultery, which is only a crime if someone "complains" and reports it to the police. Otherwise it is not.

Basically, someone other than the authorities can decide that an act constitutes a crime and should be prosecuted. Delik aduan laws are quite clear in that they require a private-party complaint.

Do we have such laws in the US?

Many such would-be crimes are not prosecuted because nobody bothers reporting them. However, a candidate in a gubernatorial election, Ahok, was jailed in one such case, having been accused of blasphemy. The way the law is written, it is so elastic that anyone could be jailed on account of it. Most of the time, however, the person accused under the law is not running for governor. Hence, most of the time, there is little incentive to make use of the law.

Western countries have elections too. They also have criminal and civil laws. Do they have "delik aduan" (reportable chapter) kind of laws?

Answer 1

That sounds a lot like the German Antragsdelikt (literally "crime by request"). That is a crime (defined in the criminal code), that can only be prosecuted if the victim requests it.

Antragsdelikt mostly applies to less serious crimes, such as slander or petty theft, while "serious" crimes, such as robbery or assault must always be prosecuted (Offizialdelikt). Also, there are many minor crimes (relatives Antragsdelikt) which are usually only prosecuted by request, but where the prosecution can also decide to press charges if it is in the "public interest" (usually because the act is deemed a serious infraction).

Similar concepts exist in Austria and Switzerland.

Answer 2

No entirely surprising given Indonesia's history, the Dutch have a klachtdelict. This is similar to the German Antragsdelikt.

Answer 3

This is a layman's answer. No, they are not considered enforceable, and yes they try.

In a small town I lived in my girlfriend wanted to raise some chickens. So we got some chicks and they wandered around the yard, and we were issued a citation, with a copy of the city statue stapled to it. The law was said (to paraphrase, since it was awhile back and I have no copies), that you may have chickens, hens only, a couple of other guide lines, as long as none of your neighbors within 300 feet objected. I did some internet research as best I could without law library access and found a couple of cases to cite and wrote a motion to dismiss. (the city attorney countered with opps we gave them the wrong statue, I wrote another motion on that, then the chickens started getting killed by a local dog and we got rid of them. I went to CA and told him the chicks was gone and he withdrew.)

What I find out I think was based in a concept of common law that says something must be a crime in order to be a crime. Rather or not it is a crime or not cannot be subject to someone else deciding that they don't like it so therefore it is a crime. This is not like rather or not someone is reporting a crime, it is not the metaphor of a tree falling in the forest. In my case with the chickens, it only became a crime when one of my neighbor's decided it was a crime. I really could not know if having chickens was illegal or not. In other words the law was vague.

One of the cases I looked at was from the 40's or 50's when in a dry county a law was written that said one can open a bar that served alcohol free beer (near beer), as long as none of the city folk had an objection. If someone did object it then became a chargeable offense. Someone opened a near beer bar, some good citizen objected, the owner was cited and ordered to shutdown, he took it to court where the judge ruled in his favor. Saying essentially that having a law that said it was legal to do a thing, unless someone objected was absurd. It was no law at all since no reasonable person would be able to know if they were in violation of the law or not.

Its the same concept they had in Montana a couple decades ago. Montana had a speed limit of "reasonable and prudent" during daylight hours. Drivers were getting tickets for speeding were there was no speed limit. It went to the Montana Supreme Court. Supreme Court threw out the law as "unconstitutionally vague." The result was that the state of Montana now has a speed limit on the interstate.

So laws like your "delik aduan", may be on the books here in the US. However there does not seem to be a legal framework that will support them if push to comes to shove with a court challenge. A law cannot be vague without being subject to being unconstitutionally vague. Laws like your "delik aduan" seem to often come under this vagueness.