Anita Rachman – Having passed no legislation since being inaugurated in October, the House of Representatives has scaled back its ambitious goal of passing 70 laws this year, according to the panel that sets the legislative calendar for the House.

The national legislature may have to make do with just 17 priority bills for 2010, said Ignatius Mulyono, the chairman of the House Legislation Body.

"We are going to concentrate on those 17 bills this year, I guess," he said. "It is pretty hard to tell lawmakers to do their job of legislating these days."

Ignatius, a Democratic Party lawmaker, said on Thursday that through the end of May, the House had forwarded just six bills to plenary screening sessions, including a long-awaited protocol bill. By the middle of June, he promised, 17 draft bills would have been pushed through initial plenary screening – meaning that the draft would be completed – before being moved to commissions for deliberation.

Ignatius also confirmed that the House had so far passed no legislation this year, although he said he was hopeful that the remaining 53 bills on the to-do list would at least get a plenary screening by July.

"Many lawmakers have been focusing on monitoring tasks lately rather than legislation," he said, in apparent reference to high-profile media-friendly investigations such as the lengthy – and ultimately inconclusive – Bank Century hearings. "At least we have 17 bills to be passed this year," he said. "I am sure we could do more."

The 70-bill target was set early in the current session after criticism was leveled at the previous House for falling asleep on the job. The legislature that was inaugurated in 2004 passed just 14 of 55 bills proposed in its first year. For its entire five-year term through 2009, the previous House passed 186 of 284 proposed bills.

Ignatius said that the best-case scenario would see the House pass 40 bills this year during the six months in which it was in full session and able to debate legislation.

Of the 70 bills targeted for 2010, 36 were drafted by the House and 34 were proposed by the government.

"We have reminded them several times, please focus on bills; let's, for example, dedicate Wednesdays and Thursdays to legislative tasks. But so far, there has been a negative response [to the proposal]," said Ignatius, whose job is to research draft legislation, schedule bills for debate, coordinate the legislative agenda with the government and monitor the process.

Ignatius said he would also ask the minister of justice and human rights, Patrialis Akbar, to help push the bills proposed by the government.

Eva Kusuma Sundari, from the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), took exception to Ignatius's remarks. She said legislation, monitoring and budgeting were all equal responsibilities of lawmakers.

She added that the House Legislation Body also needed to do a better job and that legislation needed to be reviewed more thorough by the body before the bills were brought to the House.

According to Eva, bills were being reviewed only at the commission level, a job that could be undertaken by Ignatius and his panel. "The Legislation Body should also work harder, not just push us to work quickly," she said.

Sebastian Salang, chairman of Concerned Citizens for the Indonesian Legislature (Formappi), said he was not surprised lawmakers were pointing fingers at one another.

"They should not have set such an ambitious goal in the first place," he said. "Now they'll have to explain this mess to the people who voted for them."