Anita Rachman – Apparently undeterred by harsh public criticism of lawmakers' frivolous overseas visits, the House Ethics Council is planning a trip to Greece, to learn about legislative ethics from a country with an ancient history of democracy.
Nudirman Munir, deputy chairman of the council, said on Tuesday that his group had a list of questions that urgently needed answers, so he is heading a team of eight legislators and three staffers leaving on Saturday for Greece where they hope to find them.
Greece was chosen, he said, because "an ethics council has been used there since the time of ancient Rome." Meanwhile, a trip overseas had to be taken because "the information can't be accessed through the Internet," he added.
Ancient Greece was famous for its pioneering philosophers and developing much of the framework for modern western ethics, starting from notions of virtue and physical strength and progressing to strength of character and nobility of mind.
The study and development of ethical values continued in the Roman Empire, which spread across Greece and into Asia.
"How to stop legislators from ranting or mocking others in a meeting, how to stay ethical and within regulations? Can a House Speaker dismiss a plenary meeting unilaterally? These are the questions that need to be answered, because to date, we have only used our feelings when it comes to things like these," Nudirman said.
The Golkar legislator said the team would also delve into the Greek Parliament's smoking regulations to see "whether they are allowed to smoke."
Nudirman said the ethics council wanted to learn from Greece whether or not it could dismiss legislators if they failed to answer summons, whether legislators could leave sessions after simply raising their hands and how foreign countries treated legal issues and policies, including the death penalty, "so we are not fooled by NGOs."
Nudirman claimed the council had thoroughly prepared its materials for the Greece trip. However, Gayus Lumbuun, chairman of the council, doubted the advantages of the visit and would not join it.
"I see almost no benefits of the planned visit," he said, adding that as long as the ethics council did not include representatives from the People's Conscience Party and the Great Indonesia Movement, "its decisions are not even legitimate."
The Greece trip is the latest in a series of overseas "comparative study trips" by legislators that have been slammed as a waste of taxpayers' money.
The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra) said Rp 122 billion ($13.6 million) had been earmarked in the 2010 visit for lawmakers' official overseas visits – 30 percent more than in 2009.
The reports produced, however, left much to be desired, Fitra said. One was merely a two-page description of the visit, while others contained basic information easily found on the Internet.
Ikrar Nusa Bakti, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), was skeptical of the visit. "What kind of ethics do they want to learn about? If they want to learn ancient politics, then Greece is fine," he said. "I don't understand why should they go to Greece just to learn how to interrupt."