Will House try to improve its image?

JAKARTA (JP): Since Soeharto resigned from the presidency on May 21, many have jumped on the bandwagon of political opening, contributing opinions or actions to make a change for the better.

Can legislators of the House of Representatives, bearing the decades-old image of being the government's rubber stamp, make a difference too? Skepticism looms but there is a glimmer of hope.

Legislators, observers and activists have pointed to a few opportunities that now lie open to the House to improve its image: rejection of a government regulation in lieu of a law on freedom of expression (Perpu 2/1998), and the issuance of a law ensuring fair and free elections.

Sutradara Ginting of the Golkar faction said in hearing last Tuesday that both issues are "test cases" for legislators to make a "respectable exit" after the elections, which are slated for May 1999, and after which new members would enter the House.

The hearing discussing the regulation, at Commission I for security and defense, politics, law and information, involved representatives from National Police Headquarters, the Association of Indonesian Catholic Students (PMKRI) and the private Institute of Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam).

At the House's second reading of Perpu 2/1998 on Sept. 17, Golkar, along with the Armed Forces faction, decided to accept to deliberate it further; the United Development Party faction was the only one to reject it. The government-recognized Indonesian Democratic Party faction said it neither rejected nor supported it.

Ginting complained that as an individual legislator he had no say in rejecting Perpu 2/1998. "The say is with the faction," he said. In a similar tone, another Golkar legislator said: "Our conscience rejected the regulation."

According to the House's internal rule, a legislator only has the right to ask questions but factions have the last say. However, in the House's internal rule on decision-making process, voting is possible -- theoretically.

Should there be a secret ballot in future decision-making on the regulation, Ginting predicted the outcome would likely be to reject Perpu 2/1998.

In the last and only decision-making in the House through voting, on Sept. 17, which was on candidates for the chairmanship of the Supreme Audit Board, voting was done by requiring members to stand up for their preferred candidate -- after which Golkar members were questioned by their faction leaders. "With a voting method like that, no one would dare (to oppose the faction)," Ginting said.

Given such helplessness of faction members, the public has been generally apathetic about the House, but the many recent demonstrations held there raising various demands point to exactly the opposite, an activist said in the hearing.

Riza Primahendra, chairman of PMKRI, said that PMKRI was among those who still had "a little trust" in the House.

In the case of Perpu 2/1998, drafted by the Ministry of Defense and Security, the House, Riza said, could contribute an "elegant" role by rejecting it.

Among the regulation's controversial articles are those stating that demonstrations should be limited to 50 people and that such actions need a police permit. Police permits regulated in clause 9 refers to all forms and methods of conveying expression to the public in clause 8, which includes media coverage. This has led to the interpretation that media coverage of a demonstration would also need a police permit.

Minister of Justice Muladi has argued that a large part of the regulation actually defends human rights, including the right to security in the midst of so many "uncontrolled" demonstrations these days.

But Muladi, a former member of the National Commission for Human Rights, also said that it would be "no problem" if the House rejected it, provided it had good reason to do so.

Elsam and PMKRI submitted to Commission I what they said were solid reasons to reject the regulation: one was that the government's argument justifying the issuance of a government rule in lieu of law -- that Indonesia was in a state of emergency -- was wrong.

Among 19 conditions entailed to a country's state of emergency, as cited by Elsam director, lawyer Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, the first was an official proclamation by the President of such a situation, which, he pointed out, did not happen before the announcement of Perpu 2/1998.

According to the 1945 Constitution's article 22, "a condition of pressing importance", interpreted by many as a state of emergency, justifies the government's issuance of a regulation in lieu of a law if endorsed by the House.

Ginting said now was the House's chance to play the strategic role of dropping the regulation, besides carefully deliberating the political laws next month.

The laws -- the structure and position of the People's Consultative Assembly/House of Representatives and the regional legislature and political parties, besides the elections, -- were scheduled by the government to enter public debate at the House early this month but it has been delayed until October.

Ginting warned that if the House failed to produce the widely expected outcome, the image of the House would be shattered once and for all.

"Golkar must change its paradigm from being a ruler's party to become a real ruling party," Ginting later told The Jakarta Post. (aan)