House Code of Conduct reshapes power sharing

House Code of Conduct reshapes power sharing

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives' new Code of Conduct fails to
accommodate various suggestions for improving the performance of
lawmakers as it merely focuses on new power sharing mechanisms on
House commissions and auxiliary bodies, say observers.

The new rules, to be lauched next Tuesday during a plenary
session, are the result of months of deliberation by the House
legislation committee, which deleted hundreds of clauses from the
previous Code of Conduct, which were considered detrimental to
the work of the House.

However, the new rules do not envisage allowing public access
to House deliberations or information on crucial issues, such as
the budget, which has become a key focus following the recent
disclosures of alleged malfeasance of budget funds by some
lawmakers.

"This issue was the last thing on our mind as the revision
process started months ago (while the corruption issue only
emerged recently). Those legislators who were in favor of opening
public access to budget deliberations only came in at the last
minute -- only a few days before we approved the new Code of
Conduct (on Monday)," legislation committee member from the
National Awakening Party (PKB), Saifullah Ma'shum, said on
Wednesday.

Saifullah admitted that the new rules would not completely
rule out the sort of conduct that damaged the House's image.

The new code also failed to ensure that House members would be
physically present throughout hearings. Lawmakers have been
criticized for being frequently absent during House sessions and
hearings.

In most cases, a House member is listed to sit on up to four
committees or commissions meaning that they cannot be present
simultaneously at all the meetings being held by their
commissions. Thus, they only sign the attendance lists for the
meetings, which entitles them to receive an allowance.

"But there's hope that all of the factions will now assign
their members evenly to all of the House commissions and
committees so that no one registered for three or four bodies,
while others are only registered for one," said Saifullah.

House members are regularly rotated between commissions.

But the new code does allow for changes in the distribution of
chairmanships of House committees/commissions to facilitate
demands from parties that they be given a share of the
chairmanships that is proportional to the number of seats they
hold.

At present, most commission leaders are legislators from the
coalition of three major parties that were all initially opposed
to the current administration of President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono.

They are from Golkar, the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI-P) and the PKB -- a compromise arrived at after
weeks of political struggle that caused a delay in the work of
the House early this year.

After Golkar switched sides, the self-proclaimed opposition
parties sought the reselection of commission chairmen.

Each House commission or committee will now have a fourth
deputy chairperson, changing the leadership composition to one
chairperson and four deputy chairs.

The new code, which will take effect in November, also obliges
House members to visit their constituents in the regions for at
least five days every two months. Such visits may be made during
House sessions or during recess.

This, however, raises speculation that the new requirements
will be used to justify an earlier request by the House to jack
up lawmakers' allowances to finance constituency visits.