Hans Nicholas Jong and Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The current batch of lawmakers will likely fail to meet the House of Representatives' legislative target, a watchdog group has predicted after evaluating the lawmakers' performances in the last six months.
The Indonesian Parliament Watch (Formappi), which has tracked the House's performance over the past six months, said that it was business as usual for the 560 members of the House, who came from various backgrounds, ranging from lawyers and businessmen to activists and celebrities.
"They did not meet their own targets. They also failed to grasp the people's needs and aspirations," Formappi chairman Sebastian Salang said during the release of the report on Tuesday.
From the 159 bills included in the 2015-2019 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas), 37 are on the priority deliberation list, which lawmakers as well as the government are targeting to complete deliberation of by December.
However, as of now, lawmakers have only passed two bills from the priority list, one on regional elections and the other on regional administrations. "They haven't even discussed other bills [from the priority list]," Formappi researcher Lucius Karus said on Tuesday.
To make matters worse, the two passed laws were in fact leftovers from the 2009-2014 term.
Formappi recommended that, if the House wanted to meet its legislative target, it would have to pass at least eight bills in each sitting session. The House has five sessions per year, as stipulated by the Legislative Institution Law, known as also MD3.
This year's target of 37 bills had been lowered from the target set by the 2009-2014 batch of lawmakers. In the previous term, lawmakers aimed to complete the deliberation of 251 bills with 72 on their priority list in the first year.
The House Legislation Body (Baleg) has set a target for each of the 11 House commissions to focus only on deliberating two bills every year. The target would only encourage lawmakers to deliver subpar performance, Lucius said.
"They appear to not be commitment to taking their jobs seriously. Once they set the bar low, the lazier and slower they get," he said.
Having commenced their tenure in October 2014, lawmakers have not been able to carry out their main roles in legislation, budgeting and monitoring effectively due to political struggle between the ruling Great Indonesia Coalition and the opposition Red-and-White Coalition.
But once the situation improved during the House's second sitting session, from Jan. 12 to Feb. 18, the political factions had to deal with new rifts affecting two major parties at the House, the Golkar Party and the United Development Party (PPP).
With renewed tensions, lawmakers have said that it is very unlikely that the House will meet its target, including this year's priority agenda.
Escalating tensions in the House involve a proposal for an inquiry to investigate Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly over his alleged "abuse of power" in the struggle for power in Golkar and the PPP.
The House also decided to get into new political war with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo after it declined to conduct a confirmation hearing for a new National Police chief candidate.
"All of the attention is practically devoted to the issue. The very dynamic political situation involving political parties undoubtedly has slowed down our work," deputy chairman of the Baleg, Firman Subagyo, said on Tuesday.
In spite of fresh rows, the House has decided to proceed with its plan to deliberate six bills within the current sitting session, which is expected to wrap up on April 24.
The list includes the bills on broadcasting; on state broadcasters Television of the Republic of Indonesian (TVRI) and Radio of the Republic of Indonesia (RRI), which is expected to see the merger of both; on the protection of fisheries; on architecture; on construction services; and on banking.
In addition to accomplishing the deliberation of such bills, House Speaker Setya Novanto announced that the House would also propose for the issuance a government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) on the amendment of the 2002 law on the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) as well as the deliberation of an amendment to the Criminal Code (KUHP), which has been in limbo for years.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/03/25/infighting-results-poor-house-performance.html