Halal Certificate Forgery and Halal Label Misuse: An Integrated Analysis under Fiqh Muʿamalah, Islamic Criminal Law, and Indonesian Halal Product Assurance Law

Abstract

Halal certification functions as a public guarantee that products meet Islamic dietary and production requirements, a guarantee that Muslim consumers cannot verify for themselves. Since the Halal Product Assurance Law made certification mandatory for products circulating in Indonesia, the economic value of the halal label has grown, and so have incentives to forge certificates, display labels without certification, use expired or another product's certificate, or fail to maintain the halal status of certified products. Recent findings of porcine DNA in products bearing halal labels, including certified products, illustrate that the integrity of the system is a matter of public concern. This article examines halal certificate forgery and label misuse from three perspectives: the validity and ethics of transactions under fiqh muʿāmalah, criminal liability under Islamic criminal law, and the enforcement framework of Indonesian law. Using a normative juridical approach with statutory, conceptual, and case analysis, the study analyses the Halal Product Assurance Law as amended by the Job Creation legislation, its implementing regulations, the Consumer Protection Law, the Criminal Code, classical and contemporary fiqh, and the literature on credence goods and food fraud. The findings show that halal forgery constitutes tadlīs and ghishsh that defeats the buyer's informed consent and entitles the buyer to rescission and compensation, and constitutes a taʿzīr offence combining forgery, deception, and harm to religion and property. Indonesian law provides multiple bases for liability, but enforcement is fragmented across halal, consumer protection, and general criminal regimes, and the distinction between forgery by uncertified actors and non-compliance by certified actors is not clearly articulated. The article proposes an integrated halal integrity framework comprising verifiable digital certification, risk-based surveillance, graduated sanctions, and consumer redress.