MPR bows to pressure, agrees to discuss constitutional commission
MPR bows to pressure, agrees to discuss constitutional commission
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) ad hoc commission for
amendments (Commission A) agreed on Sunday to address public
demands for the establishment of a constitutional commission
during the ongoing Annual Session.
The agreement was made at a plenary meeting of Commission A
led by chairman Jakob Tobing.
"We will include demands for a constitutional commission in
the agenda to be deliberated further in this commission," said
Jakob.
The agreement was reached following a meeting attended by nine
leaders of Commission A and representatives of the 12 factions at
the MPR building.
However, it remains unclear whether the commission will be an
independent body or a committee subordinated to the MPR.
The setting up of a constitutional commission has been
mentioned by several political parties in recent days after the
Indonesian Military/National Police (TNI/Polri) faction issued a
statement last week. The TNI/Polri faction proposed the
establishment of a constitutional commission to correlate
conflicting articles in the amended Constitution.
Several factions, including the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and
Golkar, came up with a similar idea last year, but the MPR
rejected the proposal.
The support of MPR factions for the establishment of a
constitutional commission was apparently encouraged by the
TNI/Polri proposal.
PDI Perjuangan faction spokesman Didi Supriyanto said on
Sunday that his faction would accept and was ready to discuss the
idea to form a constitutional commission.
Meanwhile, Lukman Hakim Saifuddin of the United Development
Party (PPP) faction demanded that the MPR allocate more time to
discuss the proposal.
"The constitutional commission should be discussed after the
MPR finalizes the amendment," Lukman said during a meeting of
Commission A.
Separately, Golkar's Theo L. Sambuaga said that the MPR would
set up a constitutional commission to improve the amendment
process.
Theo proposed that the membership of the constitutional
commission include representatives from the MPR.
"If membership is restricted to activists and experts, the
draft amendments will need to be reviewed by the MPR. On the
other hand, if legislators are included in the commission, the
MPR will automatically endorse the draft," Theo said, adding that
the second alternative would be more efficient.
Theo made the statement in response to a query by law expert
Marwan Mas at a hearing with the Coalition for A New Constitution
here.
Experts taking part in the hearing included Mochtar Pabottingi
of the National Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Saldi Isra of
Andalas University, Chusnul Mar'iyah of the University of
Indonesia, Daud Busro of Sriwijaya University and Bambang
Widjojanto of the Indonesian Legal Aid (LBH).
The coalition has been campaigning for an independent
constitutional commission that would outline a brand new
constitution. The idea has faced resistance from politicians,
indicating that the legislators want to keep their role in the
amendment process.
Legislators have insisted that the proposed constitutional
commission would serve as nothing more than to correlate articles
considered to be contradictory.