Jakarta – The House of Representatives has yet to take the human rights factor into consideration in doing their legislative task and control function, say an activist.
Evaluating the House's performance in the 2004-2009 period here on Thursday, they said that despite the constitutional assurance of human rights protection and the country's ratification of numerous international rights charters and covenants, human rights has not been a parameter for the House in making laws and controlling the executive body.
"Even though Indonesia, as a country, has ratified many human rights covenants and agreements in the past, the legislative body still put human rights issues as a second priority when it comes to deliberating bills into laws," Agung Yudhawiranata from the Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam) said.
The lacks of the human rights factor to be taken in legal consideration during bill deliberation has affected their legislation products in terms of quantity and quality.
Agung said that the conclusion was based on Elsam's study in 2008 and 2009. The study shows that out of 129 laws made by the House between the 2005 and 2008, only 35 of them are related to human rights issues.
"Of 35 human rights-related laws, only 19 of them pay attention to the universal human rights standards. The remaining 16 have the tendency to rights constraints," Agung said.
Agung said that the new House had to establish a fixed human rights parameter that had to be accepted by all factions.
"The parameter must be in line with previous human rights-related laws, such as children protection law, anti-abusement law, racial discrimination eradication law," he said. "The parameter must also be in line with international covenants and agreements on socio-politics and culture," he added.
Agung also said that the activists also regretted the fact that House legislators have never sought inputs from the National Commission of Human Rights, National Commission of Women Protection, and National Commission of Child Protection when they were deliberating bills, including the rights-related ones.
"The House has frequently ignored activits and nongovernmental organizations because they are considered merely as civil society groups, not state institutions," he said.
According to him, the government could no longer monopolize the human rights protection because besides nongovernmental organizations, the state has had special commissions to uphold the human rights. "The House should also exercize its control function to monitor the upholding of human rights," he said.
Responding to Agung, Dedy Djamaludin, a legislator from the National Mandate Party (PAN), said that he was pessimistic for the House to be able to improve its valuation towards human rights issues in the deliberation process of bills.
"It is a political fact that each faction in the House has its own political interests. Even the most idealistic member will keep his or her mouth shut in front of his or her respective faction," he said.
He said although the House of Representatives had been trying to coordinate among themselves in the process of making laws, especially civil laws, the government should play its important role in providing legal and insurance protection for the people because it had ministries, departments, state agencies, special commissions and experts. "We have less expert staff than the government's," he said.
Dedy said that after deliberating bills, the House and the government should have the bills synchronized with the constitution and international human rights. He also said all commissions, if not legislators, should have researchers and expert staff to help make quality laws.
According to him, all factions have their own political interests to fight for, so that they failed frequently to consider the human rights factor in deliberating the bills. Yet, the House has tried to repair the way it deliberated the bills and the current working system has been better than the past, he said.