House to use recess to deliberate crucial bill

House to use recess to deliberate crucial bill

Kurniawan Hari
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

The House of Representatives has expressed optimism that it will
endorse the bill on the constitutional court on time to meet the
deadline set by the amended Constitution.

Chairman of the House special committee appointed to
deliberate the bill Zein Badjeber said the committee would likely
use the recess scheduled for July 1 until August 14 to discuss
the bill.

Zein was responding to President Megawati Soekarnoputri's
recent letter to the House, asking the House not to rush the
bill. The President also appointed Minister of Justice and Human
Rights Yuzril Ihsa Mahendra and Attorney General MA Rachman to
represent the government during the deliberation.

Zein said the deliberation would begin on June 24 and the
special committee would have almost two months before its
endorsement scheduled for Aug. 17.

"We will start deliberating the bill on June 24, and we will
have adequate time to ensure the nation has a good law on the
constitutional court," he said here on Thursday.

A transitory provision in the amended Constitution stipulates
that the constitutional court must be established by Aug. 17,
2003.

According to the Constitution, the constitutional court has
the authority to try those who commit election violations and to
dissolve political parties and state institutions.

Zein conceded that the House was late in deliberating the bill
submitted by the government last year because it had spent a
greater part of its time to deliberate political bills including
the bill on presidential election which will be endorsed soon.

Special committee deputy chairman Zainal Arifin, also a
legislator of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI
Perjuangan), concurred saying his committee was seeking approval
from the House leadership for all commission members to suspend
the recess in order to deliberate the bill.

Meanwhile, Golkar faction chairman Marzuki Achmad said his
faction would back a move to use the recess to deliberate the
bill in effort to make a quality law.

The special committee currently deliberating the presidential
election bill, also suspended their recess in April for the same
purpose.

The House standard orders require legislators to regularly
visit their constituents when the House is in recess.

Zein said two months would be sufficient for his special
committee to complete the deliberation because in the bill's 10
chapters and 95 articles, there were no contentious issues.

He said that a possible debate among committee members and the
government would be on the recruitment of judges because based on
the Constitution, the President, the House, and the Supreme Court
will each propose their own candidates to select nine judges to
run the constitutional court. The final selection will be
conducted by the House.