Work starts to change House rules

JAKARTA (JP): After weeks of heated polemics, legislators began work yesterday on ways to change the House of Representatives' internal rules.

The 500-strong House has set up a special team to come up with a proposal on rule amendments by July 22.

The team consists of 21 legislators from the United Development Party (PPP), Golkar, the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) and the Armed Forces.

The House was forced to seek amendments to its rules after the PDI won only 11 seats in the May 29 general election. Golkar won 325 seats and the PPP 89. The other 75 seats are reserved for the Armed Forces, whose members do not vote.

Eleven seats is not enough for the PDI to field representatives at all regular and special House sessions. Representatives of all three parties and the Armed Forces are needed for a quorum at any session.

The most touted suggestion to overcome this is to reduce the number of House commissions from 11 to about five so the PDI can be properly represented.

PDI chief Soerjadi, who has been under attack for his party's humiliating defeat, supported the idea of reducing the number of commissions.

Fundamentally, he said, the House's functions could be reduced into three major categories: the state budget, law making and supervision.

"So it's good to regroup the commissions based on these categories," he said Wednesday.

The major weakness of having less commissions, he said, was that each commission would have too many members and hearings would be less effective.

But PPP chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum and former PPP chairman and rival H.J. Naro have strongly opposed reducing the number of commissions.

Metareum said extra legislators would make the commissions ineffective, and each commission would be overworked.

He said the House internal rules had to be loosened to allow each faction to use its many rights.

Critics say the House rules are so rigid that they stop legislators exercising their rights. For example, a faction cannot propose a bill without the support of at least two other factions and 20 House members.

Naro said that less commissions would be less efficient.

"They will be over-worked and won't be able to do their best," he said.

Theoretically, he said, the commissions could be reduced to four to oversee defense and diplomacy, economy and finance, development and people's welfare.

Yahya Nasution, a senior PDI House member who has remained loyal to ousted PDI leader Megawati Soekarnoputri, said that he was totally opposed to reducing the number of commissions.

"On the contrary, new commissions should be created because in the future, the House will have more issues to handle," he was quoted by Antara as saying.

Each commission now has about 45 members from the three parties and the Armed Forces.

Nasution said the problem was that only between 15 and 20 of them actively participated in any session.

"If the House is to become effective, about four more commissions should be created," he said.

The House has often been called a rubber stamp institution because of its submissive attitude to the government.

Golkar secretary-general Ary Mardjono said in the East Nusa Tenggara capital of Kupang yesterday that it was high time the House rules be revised to make the legislative body more effective.

He suggested that the House seek expert advise on how to revise its rules. (05/pan)