House ends session this week, misses legislation target

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives (DPR) will bring its current session to a close on Friday, with the same old problems simmering in the background, namely its inability to finish the deliberation of targeted bills.

With only five days left, it is impossible for legislators to pass 22 bills on the priority list of this ongoing session, which includes crucial bills on political parties and elections.

Only two of the 22 targeted bills were endorsed last week. They were the Copyright bill and the bill on a National Science and Technology System.

This week, the House is scheduled to endorse three more bills. They are bills on Electricity, Child Protection and the establishment of the province of Riau Islands.

Legislators were supposed to finish the deliberation of those five bills in the last session, but they failed to meet the set target.

The House will carry over the unfinished bills for deliberation to the next session, which will proceed from Aug. 16 through Sept. 27.

The inability of the House to improve its performance has been a serious concern since 2000, when it began focusing more on its supervisory role.

In that year, the House finished deliberating 23 bills and passed them into law.

During the 16-month rule of former president B.J. Habibie, which began in May 1998, at least 50 laws were endorsed.

Legislators have been preoccupied with political bickering over the setting up of a committee to investigate financial scandals allegedly involving former president Abdurrahman Wahid.

The long inquiry process led to the unseating of Abdurrahman which then drew the National Awakening Party (PKB), a loyal supporter of Abdurrahman, to seek retribution.

PKB's retaliatory action became apparent through its efforts, since October last year, to form a committee to investigate the involvement of Golkar chairman Akbar Tandjung in a financial scandal.

These efforts ran aground when only one out of 73 legislators voted for the establishment of an inquiry team. A total of 193 legislators voted against and 94 others abstained.

The House's failure to set up the inquiry team was attributed to Golkar's success in lobbying Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) and PKB.

A member of the House's Legislation Body (Baleg), Firman Jaya Daeli, however, refuted the view that political bickering was the reason why the House had failed to complete the deliberation of the bills.

The inability of legislators to meet their targets, he said, was due to the lack of support from the administration and the lack of time.

"We have a strong will, but there has not been enough support from the administration," said Firman of PDI Perjuangan faction.

According to Firman, the main problem was the limited time available for the deliberation of the bills. He said most of the time allocated for legislators was spent at hearing sessions with state institutions as part of the House's supervisory role.

Akil Mochtar of Golkar agreed, adding that legislators often delayed the deliberation of bills for other urgent sessions.

Citing the selection of members of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), Akil said that the selection process took two weeks and had drawn the House's Commission II to delay the deliberation of other bills.