Pandaya – The House of Representatives needs to make a breakthrough to improve its poor legislative performance as indicted by its almost certain failure to reach its target of endorsing 70 priority bills by the end of the year.

While they have only four months left this year, they have passed only 20 bills into law so far this year, most of them nonpriority ones dealing with the establishment of new regional administrations.

The delays can be blamed on a web of complex problems ranging from sheer laziness, misplaced priorities, incompetence, intricate in-House rules and the absence of legislative grand designs.

Legislators' laziness is legendary, and was made obvious in a recent revelation by the House Secretariat. Meetings have been marred by the conspicuous absence of most lawmakers supposed to attend, including those who usually stand out for their loud objections to government policies.

Although the revised 1945 Constitution has shifted the lawmaking power from the executive branch of government – which made Soeharto's New Order regime so powerful – to the House, most of bills still come from the former.

In the past, legislators enjoyed the House's status as a "rubber stamp parliament" and every government-initiated bill had price tags to complete but such allegations were impossible to prove under the then authoritarian regime.

Now, when the 1945 Constitution empowers the House with wider range of authority, legislators still put too much emphasis on their supervisory role and somewhat neglect their legislative duties.

The best example of this misplaced priority is the legislative inquiry into the Bank Century Rp 6.76 trillion (US$716 million) bailout scandal, which has wasted formidable time and resources.

Tragically, their recommendation for criminal investigations has fallen on the government's deaf ears. It has also sparked fears of a secretive political settlement that mutually benefits the government and political parties.

The overly strong supervisory function also makes legislators active in selecting officials for state institutions such as the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), the Corruption Eradication Commission, the Constitutional Court, the Human Rights Commission, and ambassadors.

Even though the present legislators come from a new breed of better educated politicians, their competence is questionable when it comes to the art of lawmaking. The low productivity and the many laws filed for review with the Constitutional Court provide ample evidence.

If the current endorsement rate of two-and-a-half bills a month prevails until the end of the legislators five-year tenure, then they will only be able to pass about 150 bills – way below the targeted 247 – into law when they have to get off their seats in 2014.

Quality-wise, the laws are so-so if the many laws filed for review with the Constitutional Court is a credible yard stick. So far this year, the Court have been handling 20 provisions in six laws that plaintiffs believe are against the Constitution. Nine of the disputed provisions have been dropped in favor of the petitioners.

In addition, there are countless laws that legislators have had to overhaul after just a few years in force. Many laws have been made without adequate public participation. The pornography law, for example, has been rejected in such areas as predominantly Hindu Bali and Christian North Sulawesi, which see it as Islamic bias.

It is high time the House reformed its law-making mechanism. Although it has been 12 years since the reformation period began, the House is still sticking to the New Order's working methods. Every lawmaker represents their respective political party and they are controlled by the party factions in the House. Therefore, laws are tailored to suit political parties instead of the public at large.

The House and the government are yet to have a grand design of future legislation that will guide them in deciding laws they should make or amend within, say, five to 10 years, the targets they mean to achieve, the priorities and so forth. The absence of a grand design explains the many flaws in the laws and keeps legislators busy patching up the holes in their products.

All the law-making chaos should humble the House to consider experts' advice that it rework its working mechanism by reducing its 11 commissions, which oversee everything under the sun, to three in line with its function: legislation, state budget deliberations and government supervision.

Only if the House reforms its working mechanism and quits its New Order mindset will Indonesia have legal certainty and democracy grow.