House of Representatives kicks off busy session

House of Representatives kicks off busy session

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives kicked off a new working session yesterday with a tight schedule to enact various bills that are now piling up on its doorstep.

House Speaker Wahono, opening a plenary session for the annual budget speech by President Soeharto, acknowledged that the House had been bogged down in deliberating the Bill on Limited Companies.

He said he has set an early February deadline to have the legislation on it passed so that the House can get on with the deliberation of other bills which are equally urgent.

He said the deliberation over the Bill on Limited Companies, which began last May, has taken considerable time largely because of the complexity of the issues at hand.

The bill, which will replace the previous law enacted in 1939, governs the terms, establishment procedures, capital and management of a limited company.

"When this bill is passed, the House stands ready to deal with other bills which are closely related to economic matters," he said, citing legislation on capital market and amendment bills to the current laws on patent, property rights and trademarks.

Wahono also underlined the need to quickly amend the laws on foreign and domestic investments "as soon as possible since they are outdated."

Many of the terms of the investment laws, enacted in 1967 and 1968, contradict the new General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) which came into force on Jan. 1 and of which Indonesia is a signatory. GATT calls for sweeping global liberalization in the trade and investment sectors.

All the bills were presented to the House by the government. The House has recently risen to the challenge of speeding up deliberations on legislative bills. The tax laws that came into force on Jan. 1, was passed after only three months of deliberations.

Wahono yesterday emphasized the need for the House to process as many bills as possible this year, especially to replace old laws which were enacted during the Dutch colonial rule.

He cited examples such as the laws on customs and excise which were enacted in 1886, and the 1917 penal law.

There were laws given top priority which were enacted quickly, such as one on national waters to follow up on the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the law on civil code to regulate easy, swift and inexpensive civil litigation, and the laws on broadcasting and consumers' protection.

Then there is of course the bill on the government's 1995/96 budget plan which was presented by President Soeharto to the House yesterday. The bill must be passed before the start of the fiscal year on April 1.(emb)