A parliament watchdog group blamed poor planning on the part of the House of Representatives as the reason for its failure to implement the National Legislative Program, or Prolegnas.

The Center for Policy and Law Studies (PSHK) said that the House passed 30 bills this year, far below the target of 69 bills. The House passed 24 bills in 2011 and 16 in 2010. PSHK said that the increasing number of bills did not translate into good quality legislation.

PSHK monitoring and advocacy director Ronald Rofiandri said that the Prolegnas planning system used by both the House and the government had been responsible for the failure in meeting the Prolegnas target. "Both the government and the House are stuck in a situation where they keep on repeating the same mistakes," he said.

Ronald said that protracted debates on technicalities could be prevented if the House and the government had enough time to prepare for the deliberation of bills.

PSHK found, for example, that during a plenary session on Dec. 4, political factions at the House requested the deliberation of the 2008 presidential election amendment bill be postponed, citing that they wanted time to reconsider whether or not a revision was needed.

Of the 30 bills endorsed in 2012, 29 were new while one was an amendment to an existing law. Eighteen bills, or 60 percent, were proposed by the House.