Nicholas Ryan Aditya, Ihsanuddin, Jakarta – Forum of Concerned Citizens for Indonesia's Parliament (Formappi) researcher Lucius Karus suspects that the House of Representatives (DPR) is addicted to deliberating and pushing through controversial draft laws (RUU) because it has "successfully" and repeatedly done so in the past.
Karus gave examples over the DPR's earlier period of which the DPR can be "proud" because a number of controversial bills were able to be discussed and ratified into laws from the Omnibus Law on Job Creation (RUU Cipta Kerja) to the State Capital Bill (RUU IKN).
Recently, towards the end of their term of office, DPR members suddenly began discussing a number of other controversial bills, namely the draft laws on the Indonesian Military (RUU TNI), the National Police (RUU Polri), the State Ministries and the Presidential Advisory Council (Wantimpres).
"So there is a kind of motivation on the basis on the success story of the controversial bills that were successfully passed by the DPR even though they were criticised by the public and even declared conditionally unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court [the Jobs Law]", Karus told Kompas.com on Wednesday July 17.
Karus said that these controversial bills were generally proceeded by deliberations that tended to be rushed and ignored public participation.
According to Karus, public criticism and even annulments by the Constitutional Court did not dampen the DPR desire to enact these controversial bills.
"The DPR can show that in the end when they have the will, then no one can stop them", he said.
"Apparently the DPR's success story of ignoring public criticism even made them feel there is no need to listen to the public at the end of their period of public service", he continued.
Therefore, according to Karus, the DPR is not hesitate about endeavouring to plan and deliberate draft laws all of a sudden that it wants to complete before the end of its term in October.
In addition to this, Karus is of the view that the four controversial bills are being discussed because the current DPR has tended to work based merely on the directives or orders of the political parties.
"So in the end the interests of the [political] parties also mean the DPR has no choice but to follow what the parties want", he said.
At the same time, continued Karus, the political parties seem helpless in the face of power.
The political parties are said to be under the control of those in power, therefore whatever the wishes of those in power are, they will easily be followed by the political parties.
"Therefore, if those in power want to change a certain law, then the political parties are ready to become the field operators, and immediately after that they're executed by the DPR", Karus said.
"The four laws mentioned earlier may represent the wishes of those in power. Just look at the articles that they want to be accommodated in the bills. The nature of power becomes very visible", he concluded.
The DPR has recently included four draft laws for deliberation towards the end of the 2019-2024 period. They are the RUU TNI, the RUU Polri the RUU on State Ministries and the RUU Wantimpres.
The RUU TNI as well as the RUU Polri for example, have attracted attention because they will expand the authority of the TNI and Polri and allow active officers to occupy civilian positions
The RUU on State Ministries as well as the RUU Wantimpres are generally predicted to be similar, namely expanding the authority of the president to be able to determine the number of ministries and the number of members of the Presidential Advisory Council.
Under each of the current two laws, the number of ministries as well as the number of members of the Advisory Council are fixed.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Pengamat Sebut DPR Ketagihan Golkan RUU Kontroversial karena Berulang Kali "Sukses"".]
