Anita Rachman, Jakarta – The House of Representatives is setting legislation targets and will enforce attendance in a bid to deal with legislators' perceived laziness.
House Deputy Speaker Pramono Anung, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the 11 oversight commissions and committees like the Legislation Body and Budget Committee would be required to pass two bills in the House's next sitting, which starts on Aug. 16.
He also said all 560 legislators would have to attend the obligatory "legislation days" on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Pramono said legislation days had been poorly attended, and called on legislators to clear their schedules and not plan out-of-town trips on these days.
"We hope that with this intensified focus we'll be able to pass 40 bills into law this year," he added.
The House previously vowed to pass 70 pieces of priority legislation this year, but slashed that target to 17. So far it has passed only six, all amendments to existing laws, with not one new bill being passed into law.
Deputy House Speaker, Anis Matta, from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said legislators should be willing to work during their month-long recess periods to deliberate key legislation.
He also said the House speaker and his four deputies would monitor the performance of the oversight commissions to ensure they met the legislation target.
"Pramono will oversee Commissions V, VI and VIII, while I'll monitor the House Budget Committee," Anis said. "I believe we can meet the target of each commission passing two bills if we work hard, without compromising on the quality of the legislation."
The current batch of legislators, inaugurated last year, previously vowed to outdo their predecessors, who were widely blasted as being lazy for failing to pass enough bills. The 2004 House passed just 14 of the 55 bills targeted for passage in its first year, and after five years had passed 186 out of the targeted 284 bills.
House Legislation Body chairman Ignatius Mulyono previously complained about the difficulty of getting enough legislators together to deliberate a bill. He told the Jakarta Globe in May that the House's initial target of 70 bills was too ambitious.
"Instead, we'll focus on passing 17 bills this year," he said. "It's pretty hard to tell lawmakers to do their job."
House Speaker Marzuki Alie blamed the slow legislation process on the legislators' lack of focus, pointing out that many served dual posts within the House, serving on oversight commissions as well as committees like the Budget Committee.
Marzuki said this called for an amendment to the 2009 Legislative Bodies Law. "We've had cases where legislators leave in the midst of a deliberation by a commission to attend a meeting by the House's Household Affairs Committee," he said. "What's up with that?"
He added the smaller parties were particularly prone to this because they had fewer legislators to go around. "Thus it would help to restrict the number of parties at the House by increasing the legislative threshold," said Marzuki, who hails from the ruling Democratic Party.