Mega complains about DPR's powers

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Kuta, Bali

President Megawati Soekarnoputri expressed concern on Monday over the increasing powers of the House of Representatives, saying that it had virtually changed the country's government from a presidential to a parliamentarian system.

"From both the theoretical and empirical perspectives, cutting down the president's authority to produce legislation, and handing that over to the House, is an understandable thing.

"However, behind those understandable steps, all of sudden we feel how everything has became so blurred. The country's government system, which in its original design was based on the presidential system, and still is according to the 1945 Constitution, has, in practice, displayed the characteristics of the parliamentarian system," Megawati said when opening the 8th National Seminar on the Development of Law in Denpasar, Bali.

This phenomenon, according to Megawati, had lessened the effectiveness of the execution of the president's directives.

A few moments before she hit the gong to officially open the five day-seminar, Megawati told seminar participants that she was not feeling well. She then asked Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra to read her speech.

Following the downfall of former dictator Soeharto in May 1998, the House changed from a rubber-stamp institution to a powerful body that controls virtually all institutions in the country, including the office of the president.

In the newly endorsed bill on the composition of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the House, and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), the House has been vested with the right to order police authorities to detain anyone who refuses to meet a House summons.

Megawati said the confusion reflected the existence of a wide gap between the hopes the people had in the reform process and the realities they face.

"Through reform we want to achieve the dynamic balance in the relationship between state institutions, particularly between the President, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court," she said.

"We admit that the judicial authority has now became a free and independent authority, and even an authority without supervision. This authority will in turn encourage the birth of an authority which is a menace to freedom itself," she said.

Responding to the President's speech, former minister of justice Muladi said her concern over the growing power of the House was justified.

"The President has expressed that concern to me before. She complained about the fact that a bill automatically becomes law in 30 days after the House endorses it, regardless of whether the President signs it or not," Muladi said.

Some bills, including the one of broadcasting, became law 30 days after they were endorsed by the House despite the fact that they had not been signed by Megawati.

Muladi said the planned constitutional court should study and find an acceptable solution to the problems -- a solution that would enable the President to perform her duties effectively and at the same time maintain the adequate check-and-balance mechanism between the President and the House.

The newly amended Constitution has given the government until Aug. 17 to establish a constitutional court to settle, among others, constitutional disputes.

The commission then recommended that solution to the MPR, the highest legislative body, which, according to Muladi, has the authority and legitimacy to solve the problem.

"Apparently the House's portion (of power and authority) is too much, such that the government feels that it is being obstructed," Muladi told.

"This problem is the result of a reform process that has gone a bit too far," he said.