House ends session this week, misses legislation target

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.