Nina Loasana, Jakarta – The State Secretariat has completed the review of the Job Creation Law handed over by the House of Representatives and it is ready to be signed by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, an official has said.
"The State Secretary has finished the tidying up process," presidential expert staff member Dini Shanti Purwono said on Friday as reported by kompas.com.
She said after the final review by State Secretary Pratikno, the version sent by the House, which initially consisted of 812 pages, had now become 1,187 pages. The additional pages came from corrections of errors, as well as text and page formatting.
She further said that Pratikno had also scrapped one article from the law.
The 1,187-page version no longer contains changes to Article 46 of Law No. 22/2001 on oil and natural gas.
The article in question in the 812-page version gave the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry the authority to approve tariffs for transporting natural gas by pipeline or toll roads – a process that is currently under the jurisdiction of the Downstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Agency (BPH Migas).
The House Legislation Body (Baleg) never approved the proposed change during the deliberation process, but it was included in the 905-page draft, which was used by the House to pass the bill into law on Oct. 5, as well as the 812-page version that the House sent to Jokowi.
Dini said the article removal was in line with a Baleg deliberation meeting, so it did not change the substance of the Job Creation Law.
Pratikno also argued that there were no substantive changes in the final version, saying that the change in the number of pages was caused by alterations in the text and format.
"Every technical revision was carried out with the approval of the House, as is proven by the signature of the Baleg head [on the final version]," Pratikno said on Thursday as quoted by tempo.co.
As the review process was over, Dini said the law was ready to be "signed by the President".
Constitutional law expert Feri Amsari of Andalas University questioned the moves, saying that the State Secretary had no authority to revise the jobs law after it was passed by the House.
He said the State Secretary could not simply revise the draft as he saw fit, as all steps in the drafting of laws were stipulated in the 2019 Legislation Establishment Law, 2018 Legislative Institutions (MD3) Law and the House's Code of Conduct.
No revision should occur after the controversial omnibus jobs bill had been passed into law, and doing so was a "blatant violation" of the prevailing law.
"It is odd that such a blatant violation could occur. This only adds to a long list of defects that arose during the creation of the law. Administratively, this shows a chaotic process that should embarrass [lawmakers]," Feri told The Jakarta Post on Friday.