Juvenile Criminal Responsibility: A Comparative Study of Islamic Jurisprudence and the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018

Abstract

The criminal responsibility of minors is a distinctive issue at the intersection of criminal law, legal capacity, child protection, rehabilitation, and the rights of victims. Islamic jurisprudence does not treat childhood as a single undifferentiated legal status. Rather, it develops a graduated conception of legal capacity through ahliyyah, tamyīz, bulūgh, ʿaql, and taklīf. The Juvenile Justice System Act 2018 (JJSA 2018), by contrast, adopts a principally chronological approach and provides a special justice regime for persons below eighteen years. This article comparatively examines the Qur’anic and Prophetic foundations of juvenile responsibility, classical juristic positions on ḥudūd, qiṣāṣ, taʿzīr and taʾdīb, the doctrine of ḍamān, and the principal safeguards established by the JJSA 2018. It finds substantial convergence in the objectives of justice, mercy, dignity, rehabilitation, diversion and prevention of excessive punishment, while identifying a significant conceptual difference concerning the criterion of responsibility: chronological age under the JJSA and maturity/legal capacity under classical fiqh. The article argues that this difference does not necessarily create an irreconcilable conflict. The eighteen-year threshold may operate as a protective procedural classification, while Islamic jurisprudence addresses substantive legal and moral responsibility. A harmonized model can therefore preserve statutory protection while incorporating Sharīʿah-informed principles of graduated responsibility, restorative justice, ṣulḥ, family participation, moral rehabilitation and victim compensation through ḍamān