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.