House, govt need to communicate

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Minister of Law and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin on Tuesday called for intensive communication between the House of Representatives and the government to avoid deadlock in the law- making process.

"A joint team must be set up before the deliberation of a bill to avoid deadlock and minimize the influence of sectoral interests in the law-making process," Hamid said during a hearing with the House's legislation committee.

The hearing was organized as part of the preparations for the drawing up of the new national legislation program (prolegnas), which sets out legislative priorities.

Legislation committee deputy chairman Pataniari Siahaan of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said that around 140 bills would be deliberated between 2004 and 2009.

"Of course, the House and the government need to reach a common understanding," he said, adding that the committee also elicited and listened to the views of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community groups.

The House failed to deliberate 61 bills during the 1999-2004 period, apparently because the House and the government did not have a common understanding about which bills should be prioritized.

A controversial example of the conflicting approaches of the House and the government is the bill amending Law No.36/2000 on the Batam free trade zone.

Despite strong opposition from the government, the House insisted on passing its own bill.

The problem was apparently caused by the fact that the House and the government proposed two separate versions of the bill.

In its own bill, the government stated that free trade status should be conferred on specific parts of Batam while the House insisted on maintaining full free trade status for the whole island.

During the hearing, Hamid said the government would prioritize bills required by the Constitution, bills to repeal or amend outdated laws and promote economic growth and technological development, and bills that were left over from the previous House.

The minister emphasized that the government would also ratify a number of conventions to sustain good relations with the international community.

Legislation committee member Djuhad Mahja said, meanwhile, that the committee should be the center of the legislative process in the House. He regretted that some House commissions often insisted on deliberating certain bills despite the fact that it was up to the committee to decide.

"The House commission suffer from inflated egos as regards the law-making process," he said, adding that this had the potential to disrupt the efforts develop an effective legislative system.