Children in conflict with the law are entitled to effective legal assistance throughout the juvenile criminal justice process. However, although Law No. 11 of 2012 concerning the Juvenile Criminal Justice System requires legal assistance at every level of examination, its implementation may be hindered when parents or guardians are unavailable to provide formal authorization for legal representation. This situation creates a normative tension between the child’s statutory right to legal assistance and the general civil-law requirements concerning legal capacity and power of attorney. This study aims to analyze the normative barriers to providing immediate legal assistance to children in conflict with the law and to formulate a legal reconstruction that ensures effective access to counsel from the earliest stage of examination. The study employs normative juridical research using statutory, conceptual, and doctrinal approaches. Primary legal materials include legislation governing juvenile justice, legal aid, child protection, criminal procedure, and contractual capacity, while secondary materials consist of relevant legal scholarship and scholarly publications. The materials are analyzed qualitatively by examining the relationship between statutory obligations, legal capacity, power of attorney, and procedural safeguards for children. The findings reveal two principal barriers: regulatory constraints arising from the child’s limited contractual capacity to grant power of attorney and coordination constraints related to the immediate availability of qualified legal aid providers. The study proposes a normative reconstruction that separates the child’s procedural right to legal assistance from ordinary contractual capacity by establishing a statutory mechanism for the immediate appointment of an independent advocate when a parent or guardian is unavailable. This reconstruction would strengthen effective access to legal assistance and reinforce child-sensitive juvenile justice in Indonesia.
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