Jakarta – With much of the nation gripped by the goings-on surrounding the run-up to the presidential election, members of the current House of Representatives are basking in a glut of free time away from the intense public gaze.
With draft bills mounting and their time in office set to end in four months, House legislators were expected to intensify efforts to at least push through the bills at the top of the House's priority list before their time was up.
Friday, however, saw the House almost empty, although usually no meetings are scheduled on Fridays. A meeting of Golkar Party legislators was the only one on the agenda, and resulted in the party's push for the government to give civil servants and police and military personnel a 13th monthly salary in June.
Ganjar Pranowo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said most legislators were still doing their jobs seriously.
"Of those bills on our list, not everybody will discuss everything. Some draft bills have been handed to formulating teams, while others are still in the hands of working committees," said Ganjar, who heads the working committee on the bill on the structure and position of legislative bodies.
He added the public might not even be aware that even if the House looked relaxed, its members were busy with deliberation of bills.
"With our workload at this time of year, we cannot always use the rooms at the House to hold our meetings, since some meetings are marathons that last several days," he said. "Some of us use the House's villas in Cikoko [in West Java], and some use hotels."
There are at present 71 bills awaiting House approval, while the time remaining for meetings is less than 20 weeks.
In April, the House decided in a consultative meeting to finish 39 bills by the end of the current term on Sept. 30, 2009. The plan was to complete at least 16 legal drafts by July 3, and the other 23 before the new members are sworn in on Oct. 1.
The 39 bills include the drafts on the corruption court, state secrecy, prevention and eradication of money laundering, and state finance.
In the 2009-2014 period, the House will see some members leave and welcome many new faces.
The Democratic Party and the Prosperous Justice Party won more House seats, while new parties the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and the People's Conscience Party (Hanura) will mark their House debuts.
"The House of Representatives has made no progress in accomplishing its legislative function," said Transparency International Indonesia (TII) chairman Todung Mulya Lubis. "The performance of the members has hit a low level."
TII, he added, was deeply concerned about the corruption court and the judicial commission bills, which it said were key to corruption eradication within government institutions and the judiciary. "We are worried with their slow performance and feel there is negligence, whether intentional or not, in treating these urgent tasks," he said.
Their negligence could hinder the accountable process of change from an authoritarian to a more democratic government, he said.
"Members of the House have only finished legal drafting of laws that are not urgent, such as the law on new regencies," said TII policy and research manager Franki Simanjuntak. "And technically, many of them have just 'copy-pasted' the contents."
Suspicion is rife that the regencies bill involves bribery to win House approval. (iwp)