Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The House of Representatives is set to send another delegation off on an overseas study trip, this time to the United States and Japan, drawing yet more criticism for its insistence on conducting what many have deemed a series of junkets.
Ignatius Mulyono, the chairman of the House Legislative Council, said on Monday that a team from his council was scheduled to travel to the United States and Japan from April 20-27 as part of ongoing deliberations into bill of proposed amendments to the 2003 Law on Lawyers.
The schedule is not yet fixed, however, because lawyers have asked that deliberations of the bill be postponed until amendments to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Code Procedures are finalized.
Critics were quick to attack the trip. Uchok Sky Khadafi, the advocacy coordinator for the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), said the trip would serve no meaningful purpose in giving the legislators a better understanding of the issue, and accused the legislators of simply wanting an excuse to travel abroad. "To top it all off, the legislators will be traveling with all expenses paid," he said.
Otto Hasibuan, the chairman of the Indonesian Bar Association (Peradi), also questioned the upcoming trip, saying the country's sole guild of lawyers saw no reason why the legislators would need to go abroad to get to grips with the drat bill.
"Such visits are the House's business, but I don't condone them and I certainly wouldn't recommend them," he said as quoted by Detik.com. "If they do end up going, I hope they come back with an understanding of the need for an organization such as Peradi," he said.
If it goes ahead, the US and Japan trip will come on the heels of a trip by another group of legislators to Ukraine and Turkey to discuss possible arms deals.
Legislators from House Commission I, which oversees defense and foreign affairs, are slated to travel to the two countries from April 13-19.
That trip has come under criticism because of the lack of a clear agenda in Turkey, where a previous delegation was reported to have taken in a belly dancing performance in 2010.