Once Reported, Judged for Life: The Right to be Forgotten on the Internet
There is one type of punishment that is never imposed in a courtroom, yet its impact can be far longer than any judge’s ruling: digital punishment.
As a judge, I understand that every case has an endpoint (litis finiri oportet). There is a process, a decision, and a phase where a person resumes their life as a citizen. However, personal experience has brought me to a different realisation—that in the digital world, that endpoint often never truly exists.
My name, Marsudin Nainggolan, is frequently linked in various digital news traces to the narrative of being “arrested” by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). Regardless of the context, accuracy, or the actual dynamics of the events, what follows is endless repetition.
Search engines continually resurface those fragments of the past, shaping a public perception that is difficult to correct.
It is at this point that I feel it directly: a person may be finished legally, but never finished digitally.
The Right to be Forgotten: Between Norms and Reality
Normatively, Indonesia has recognised the right to be forgotten through the ITE Law. However, this recognition stops on paper. It lacks clear procedures, definite mechanisms, and guidelines for judges to act.
As a result, the right becomes a kind of unenforceable legal promise. When someone wants to delete or at least limit access to digital information that is no longer relevant, they do not know what path to take. Should they sue? File a petition? To whom? With what standards?
And more problematically: judges also lack uniform guidance.
The Supreme Court and the Vacuum Left Unfilled
In such situations, the role of the Republic of Indonesia Supreme Court should be key.
As an institution with the authority to formulate Supreme Court Regulations (Perma), the Supreme Court is actually in a strategic position to fill the procedural legal vacuum. However, to this day, there is not a single Perma that specifically regulates the mechanism for the right to be forgotten.
Yet, in many other contexts, the Supreme Court does not hesitate to act progressively. When there is a legal vacuum in judicial practice, Perma often emerges as a solution. But on an issue concerning human dignity in the digital era, that step has not yet appeared.
This absence is not merely technical. It directly impacts legal uncertainty.
Judges at a Crossroads Without Guidance
Without clear guidelines, judges are in an less-than-ideal position. Every right to be forgotten case has the potential to be decided with varying approaches.
One judge might view it as privacy protection, while another could reject it for the public interest. Without measurable parameters, justice becomes highly dependent on individual perspectives.
Furthermore, this situation opens up two risks at once: on one side, individual rights may be overlooked; on the other, the right to be forgotten could be misused to erase information that is actually important to the public.
When Law Loses to Algorithms
Today’s reality shows that search engine algorithms are often more powerful than court decisions. Information that is once published will continue to be replicated, shared, and resurfaced—without considering whether that information is still relevant or not.
If the law does not step in to regulate, what happens is a “court without a judge”—where public opinion is shaped by data that is never contextually updated.
In this situation, the state risks allowing its citizens to endure a second punishment: an endless digital social punishment.
Perma as a Way Out
The solution to this problem does not necessarily have to wait for legislative changes. The Supreme Court has sufficient instruments: Perma.
A Perma on the right to be forgotten could become an important foundation for bringing legal certainty, by regulating:
the mechanism for filing petitions in court,
the parties that must be involved,
objective parameters for judges in assessing the relevance of information,
and the form and implementation of decisions in the digital space.
With a Perma, judges no longer walk alone, and society has a clear path to demand their rights.
Healing Digital Wounds
The right to be forgotten does not mean erasing history. It is an effort to place the past proportionally—not endlessly punishing someone without end.
Fair law is not only one that can punish, but also one that can give the opportunity to start anew.
Without clear mechanisms, the right to be forgotten will only be a slogan. But with regulatory courage, it can become a real instrument to protect human dignity in the digital era.
And that is where the state should be present—not as a spectator, but as a guarantor that justice does not stop in the courtroom, but also lives in the digital space.
Marsudin Nainggolan. Judge and academic.