The House of Representatives concluded on Thursday a month-long sitting session, passing two bills into laws and delaying 40 others.

The deliberations of this year’s priority bills, most of which have thus far failed to pass the House, will be continued when the next sitting session commences in the middle of January next year.

House Speaker Setya Novanto said his institution aimed to improve its legislative process. “President [Joko] Jokowi [Widodo] has repeatedly encouraged the House not to issue too many laws. With his message, he probably wants us to produce better regulations,” he told a plenary meeting on Thursday.

“We will improve collaboration with the President to improve the quality of national legislation,” the Golkar politician added.

One of the two newly approved laws is the law on construction services, which regulate comprehensively and in more details matters related to the construction sector, including the mechanism to use foreign services. The second law is on the ratification of a treaty, which regulates territorial seas between Indonesia and Singapore in the eastern part of the Singapore Strait.

Although lawmakers failed to achieve the 2016 legislation target, they have agreed to add 13 more bills to the list of 40 priority bills targeted for approval next year. This includes the amendment of a 2014 law on legislative institutions, known as the MD3 Law, which is expected to pave the way to granting a leadership seat in the House and the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) to the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

“The decision to add and extend the deliberations of the rest of the bills is based on an agreement between the House and the government,” said House Legislative Body (Baleg) chairman Firman Subagyo. (ebf)

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