Rethinking Filicide through Freudian Psychoanalysis: A Comparative Perspective on Indonesian and Spanish Criminal Cases
Keywords:
Comparative Criminal Liability, Child Protection, Filicide, Forensic Legal Psychology, Freudian PsychoanalysisAbstract
Filicide is one of the most complex forms of domestic homicide. Criminal law studies generally focus on the fulfillment of the elements of the crime and criminal responsibility. In contrast, psychiatric and criminological research focuses more on the psychological condition of the perpetrator. Consequently, there is still a gap in the legal literature regarding how subconscious psychological dynamics can explain filicide without shifting the principle of criminal responsibility. This study aims to fill this gap through a Freudian psychoanalytic analysis within a comparative criminal law framework, comparing the cases of Panca Darmansyah in Indonesia and José Bretón in Spain. The study uses normative legal methods with a comparative approach combined with psychoanalytic interpretation of court decisions, legal frameworks, and forensic findings. The results show that the Indonesian and Spanish criminal justice systems both determine criminal responsibility based on the perpetrator's cognitive and volitional capacities, despite the presence of deep psychological conflict. Meanwhile, the psychoanalytic analysis reveals that filicide develops through processes of repression, narcissistic injury, identity fragmentation, symbolic objectification of the child, and the redirection of aggression. This study demonstrates that criminal responsibility and subconscious motivation exist at different but complementary levels of analysis. The contribution of this research is the development of a psycho-legal framework that integrates Freudian psychoanalysis and comparative criminal law to enrich the legal analysis of filicide and support the development of forensic assessment and criminal justice policy.
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