House ends tenure with pathetic record
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Legislators elected in 1999 ended their five-year term on Thursday, with critics giving them a fail mark, particularly in accommodating people's aspiration during the law-making process.
The critics also said on Thursday that the legislators failed to produce quality legislation.
Bivitri Susanti, director of the Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies (PSHK), said that the legislators had produced 171 laws since they took their oath of office in 1999, including 64 laws on the formation of new regencies and provinces.
"The House can produce a big quantity of laws, however we question the quality of those laws," Bivitri said at a discussion here on Thursday.
She pointed to a number of laws brought to the Constitutional Court for judicial review as proof.
Within a year of its establishment, the Constitutional Court has examined 44 requests, 22 of which have been settled.
Constitutional law expert Saldi Isra, who also spoke at the discussion, warned that the tendency of legislators to pursue quantity rather than quality would create problems, namely inconsistencies in the stipulations in different laws.
House members have been under fire for rushing to complete the deliberation of some bills before they ended their term on Thursday.
The controversial Indonesian Military (TNI) bill is just one of several bills deliberated within only a month. A bill on the creation of West Sulawesi province, the country's 33rd province, was discussed in just two weeks.
A bill on the notarial profession was discussed and endorsed within 15 days.
The legislators, however, have always had excuses. They said that they had not set a target for bill deliberation, but simply worked intensively. They often said that they had prepared the bill for at least a year, pending the appointment of minister to represent the executive branch of the government for the deliberation.
Outgoing legislator Zain Badjeber who chairs the House's Legislation Body (Baleg) acknowledged that there was poor coordination among state offices in the law-making process.
He said he hoped there would be a single state office that coordinated the law making process. "So far, each state department can outline bills. I hope the government will center the law-making process under a ministry of legislation," said Zain of the United Development Party (PPP).
Regarding the number of laws brought to the Constitutional Court for judicial review, Zain said that the trend had nothing to do with the quality of those laws.
According to him, people file a request with the Constitutional Court for judicial review with different intentions. He said that some requests of the people for judicial review were rejected by the Constitutional Court, meaning that the laws were solid.