Commission may rid Constitution of political self-interest
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Constitutional Commission has promised it would deal with the substance of the amended Constitution and neutralize articles regarded that contain short-term interests beneficial to certain political parties.
"We will try to get rid of any political interests in the amended Constitution and make it better," the commission's deputy chairman Albert Hasibuan vowed after a meeting with chairman Sri Soemantri and deputy chairman Ishak Latuconsina here on Friday.
Albert, however, declined to go into detail, saying the commission would discuss it at a plenary meeting scheduled for Monday.
The meeting on Friday was held to discuss the working mechanisms and agenda of the commission for their 7-month tenure.
Albert said the commission would revise several articles which many considered inappropriate.
Soemantri earlier said that many articles in the amended Constitution were made via consensus between competing interest groups, causing inconsistencies between one article to another.
Among the changes to be made would be an article on the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), which is not equipped with adequate authority in accordance with the bicameral system Indonesia will adopt after the 2004 elections.
The DPD and the House of Representatives (DPR) will make up the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).
Political parties, through their lawmakers in the Assembly, agreed to limit the power of the DPD whose members must have no affiliation to a political party.
Albert, a former member of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said that although the Constitutional Commission was created simply to assess and to harmonize articles in the amended Constitution, his 31-member team would upgrade the Constitution.
During its second meeting on Monday, the commission expects to hear input from its members on the mechanism and schedule of its work.
Each member will be given three minutes to deliver his or her opinions.
The Assembly agreed to create a Constitutional Commission last year in a bid to appease public demand for a truly independent commission with a strong mandate to write a new Constitution.
Responding to the demand, the Assembly worked out its own compromise by forming its an MPR-run, semi-independent Commission but only gave it authority to "assess" the Constitution.
The Commission will work for seven months and report next year to the Assembly which will then decide whether to approve it or not.