The House’s official website shows the legislative body was now deliberating seven bills covering fund transfers, reserves, immigration, money laundering, state protocol, currency and geospatial information.

The House’s failure to enact laws in 2010 raised concern among legislators.

Several legislators urged their peers to focus on their roles as lawmakers instead of appearing in media or criticizing the government in an attempt win public support.

Achsanul Qosasi of the Democratic Party, a deputy chairman of the House’s finance commission, told The Jakarta Post on Friday he doubted legislators would meet their 2010 target.

“At this pace, passing a minimum of 10 bills into laws per month is impossible,” he said.

Achsanul criticized his peers, saying they scrutinized the government and focused on the House’s supervisory role instead of enacting laws and deliberating the budget.

“If the government makes a policy that we think wrong, it is our job to criticize it. However we must also do our other work,” he said.

House Deputy Speaker Anis Matta from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said the deputy speakers had discussed this issue.

“We will focus on our legislative and the budgetary duties for the remainder of the current legislative session. From May to November, we will focus on passing bills and the budget,” he said.

“We will also meet regularly with the House’s Legislative Council and budget committee leaders,” he added.

Legislative Council chairman Ignatius Mulyono of the Democratic Party, told the Post the council had urged several commissions to begin deliberation more bills.  “Hopefully we can finish 17 bills in this session,” he added.

The House’s failure to meet its legislative goal has become a point of criticism for outside observers.

A study conducted by Formappi, an Indonesian parliamentary watchdog group, shows the House enacted 186 laws from a proposed 284 bills between 2004 and 2009.

The study says a majority of the bills considered were about low-priority issues, such as the regional expansion laws, which were not controversial but very important to the political parties.

Formappi also noted the previous parliament failed to meet its legislative targets and many laws it enacted between 2004 and 2009 were later contested at the Constitutional Court.

Yunarto Wijaya, an expert from Charta Politika, said he doubted the current House could perform better.

Popular

RI, Australia strengthen partnership on taxing crypto assets

Analysis: Indonesia denies normalization with Israel to enter OECD

Citroen to produce electric cars in Indonesia