Jakarta – Personal problems, laziness and the obligation to help their party achieve its goals have burdened legislators, raising doubts as to whether they can ratify dozens of crucial bills by September.

House of Representatives Speaker Agung Laksono recently announced that legislators should keep on working and remain focused on ratifying a group of important bills, regardless of the performance of their party in the general elections.

There are currently 39 priority bills that the current House needs to ratify by the end of its tenure in September.

However, the possibility of achieving the target is hindered by the constant lack of attendance of representatives, according to House Honors Board vice chairman Gayus Lumbuun.

"Most of them were unable to attend the meetings on the bills because of various reasons, such as personal problems or that they have other obligations with their respective political parties, whether it is for campaigning during elections or discussing coalition possibilities," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Gayus, also a parliament member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said that it was essential for political parties to encourage their legislators in the House to increase their rate of attendance and participation in the meetings.

"The parties must also replace their caucus members if they are proven to be too lazy about attending the meetings, which are crucial for ratifying the bills," he said.

Agung Laksono told the Post that the House Disciplinary Board would send a warning letter to any legislator who did not attend three consecutive meetings and could even remove their names from the House if their absence continued.

Gayus said that increasing participation would enable the House to reach their target of completing the ratification of the bills.

"If political parties can encourage their caucus members to attend the meetings on the bills more frequently, then we will feel more optimistic about ratifying all of the bills before the end of our tenure," he said.

"However, if the current situation continues, then I cannot imagine what it will be like by the end of our tenure. I do not dare to make any prediction on how many of the priority bills we can make into laws by the end of our tenure," he added.

Gayus said that the PDI-P caucus had just managed to finish categorizing corruption court bills issued so far.

Hari Azhar Azis, a legislator from the Golkar Party, said that it was still difficult to predict how many of the 39 priority bills would be passed into law. "The obstacle to achieving the targets may also come from the government, not only from the House," he said.

In 2005, the House only completed the ratification of 14 bills out of its targeted of 55. In 2006, only 39 out of 43 bills became law. The House managed to reach its targets of ratifying 40 and 64 legislative bills into law in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

However, the majority of the bills ratified by the House in those periods were mainly connected with forming new territorial administrative units and did not touch on critical issues. (hdt)