Jakarta – The House of Representatives has three weeks to pass their target of 22 priority bills, but legislators are apparently unable to even show up to deliberate the potential laws.

For example, a planned meeting that was supposed to discuss four bills related to the judicial system – the judiciary power bill, the general judicial system bill, the religious judicial system bill and the state administration judicial system bill – had to be cancelled Monday because most members of a working committee deliberating the bills failed to show up.

"Only nine out of 50 committee members showed up. How can we start a meeting if we do not have the needed quorum?" asked committee chairman and member of the Golkar Party Agung Gunandjar Gunarsa.

The House's internal regulations stipulate that at least 50 percent of a committee's members must show up before a meeting can commence.

Agung, appearing upset, waved the nearly blank attendance sheet at the few legislators who did attend the meeting.

"None of the members from the National Awakening Party (PKB) showed up. Only two out of nine representatives from the United Development Party (PPP) showed up," he said as he read the attendance list.

"I hope that the House Board of Honors will take firm action against these lazy legislators. The board must not only give them a warning, but also to remove them from any strategic post at the House."

Legislators who failed to show up included some re-elected for the 2009-2014 period, such as Marwan Jakfar from the PKB and Maiyasyak Johan from the PPP. Maiyasyak did not respond when The Jakarta Post asked him why he did not show up to the meeting.

A political analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Siti Zuhro, said that she was not surprised to learn that legislators were not attending meetings.

"Laziness has become a part of being a legislator. What happened today is just business as usual," she said. "The legislators are lazy during their active tenures, let alone nearing the end of their terms."

Siti said it was more understandable that legislators who were not re-elected had started to slack off. She, however, said she was very disgruntled to learn that those who managed to secure another term were also too lazy to show up.

"That situation shows that laziness will be a part of the House for a long time to come," she said. "Those legislators have no awareness at all that they were elected by the people as their representatives."

"Having said that I find it im-possible that the House will meet its target of passing 22 bills into law this month. It would be impossible even if the House decided to drop the hammer on each bill every single day of the week starting today."

Other than the four lowercase judicial system bills, the legislators also, apparently, aim to endorse the corruption court bill and the rural development bill, among others, before the end of their term this month.

The House is scheduled to pass the electricity bill and the film bill into law on Tuesday. (hdt)