House blames govt on slow lawmaking

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta |
Fri, 11/26/2010 10:46 AM | National


The House of Representatives believes the government’s legislative performance is poor, saying the government has yet to submit important bills for deliberation.
Chairman of the House’s legislative committee Ignatius Mulyono said the government had agreed to prepare around 40 bills to be listed in this year’s legislation priority, but only dozens were submitted.
He added that many bills prepared by the House could not be deliberated because the government had not appointed its relevant ministers to discuss them.
“The legislative committee is still waiting for 17 of around 70 bills, which have been given top priority to be endorsed this year and it’s impossible for the two sides to reach the legislative target within the next one month,” he told The Jakarta Post recently.
Mulyono claimed that endorsing 15 bills was the best the House could do under the current legislative process and that its performance could only be improved if the current system was repaired.
However, he expressed his optimism that the House could complete the deliberation of 18 more bills in the 26-day sitting period just to show that it was committed to improving its performance in the legislative field.
Deputy chairwoman of the legislative committee Ida Fauziah said the public was unfair when it did not say anything to the government, which also had its legislative right.
“Of 70 bills given top priority, 36 should come from the government and only dozens have been submitted to the House,” she said, adding that according to the constitution, the legislative right belonged to the House and the government.
Airlangga Hartarto chairing the Commission VI on trade and industry also criticized the government for its poor legislative performance. He said the legislation process became stagnant mainly because of the government factor.
“The series of natural disasters in Wasior, West Papua, Mentawai, West Sumatra, and Yogyakarta, Central Java, have been used as an excuse for the government not to submit many draft laws and respond to the House’s move to speed up the deliberation of bills given top priority,” Airlangga said.
He said the government had not yet submitted two long-awaited bills on trade and industry while three bills on micro-finance institutions, storage and trade commodity, which were prepared by the House, have not been endorsed into laws.
The House has been under fire for its poor legislative performance. Civil society groups condemned the House when the House proposed the rehabilitation of legislators’ housing in Kalibata, South Jakarta, the new hall construction project at the House’s compound, the allocation of pork barrel funds for legislators and the foreign trip of several groups of legislators for a comparative study this year.
Sebastian Salang, executive director of the Parliament Watchdog called the House’s blame as an excuse to counter the public’s anger over its poor legislative performance. “First of all, the House has yet to show strong political commitment, focusing on its main function in the legislative body and the conflicting interests among political parties and between the government and the House has also contributed to the boycotting of certain bills,” he said.