Jakarta – On July 3 the House of Representatives will take its final recess, putting the fate of a number of long awaited bills in uncertainty.
Of the 39 bills considered top priorities to be deliberated over the next two weeks, two bills on the anticorruption court and state secrecy are unlikely to be passed, as both have significant political strings attached.
The House will reconvene for its final, two-week sitting period between Aug. 15 and Sept. 30, but with just one month left in total, the passage of the bills looks doubtful.
The special committee deliberating the anticorruption bill hinted that the government should prepare a regulation in-lieu of law (Perppu) because it would not finish deliberating the bill in September.
In 2006, the Constitutional Court set the end of this year as the deadline for giving the anticorruption court a permanent mandate.
"I think it will be difficult to endorse the bill in the coming three months. We are also working on many other important matters, such as the inquiry into the voter list fiasco," Gayus Lumbuun, a member of the special committee from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), told The Jakarta Post.
Gayus said the committee would try to work on the bill during the recess period in order to complete it by August. "However, I personally suggest the government start preparing a Perppu to anticipate the worst if the House does not finish deliberating the bill."
The bill was submitted by the government to the House in September 2008 but the House has been slow in deliberating the bill, which has the potential to send a great deal of legislators and regional heads to jail.
Abdullah Dahlan, a researcher with the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), said efforts to eradicate corruption would be jeopardized if the House fails to pass the bill.
"If the House fails, then corruptors can only be charged in ordinary courts," he said. "Based on past experiences, alleged corrupters were often released from all charges in ordinary courts."
The ICW revealed in a recent report that in 2008 less than 40 percent of 444 graft suspects were sentenced and sent to prison. On average, convicted corrupters spent only 5.8 months behind bars.
Abdullah said that it is these political motivations that have prompted the House to ask the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to suspend its investigations until the government appoints a replacement for disgraced chief Antasari Azhar.
"Once the bill is enacted, the KPK will intensify corruption investigations on the House," he said. "Therefore, the only way to maintain the existence of the anticorruption court is by issuing a Perppu."
The House will also likely fail to pass the contentious bill on state secrecy, which has been met with strong opposition from civil society groups, including the media. The bill was born from an earlier plan conceived by the State Code Agency during the New Order era.
"Logically, it will be very difficult for the House to endorse the contentious bill before its recess. So far, we only managed to resolve some 50 percent of about 300 contentious issues in the bill," said Djoko Susilo, a member of the House's Commission I on information, defense and foreign affairs.
According to an April 2007 Tempo article, the 1999-2004 House spent Rp 234 million (US$23,243) deliberating a bill before it was endorsed. In 2005, a budget of Rp 368 million per bill was set; this was almost doubled to Rp 668 million in 2006. (hdt)