T

he Regional Representative Council’s (DPD) struggle for stronger lawmaking authority continues, with its members pledging to produce more legislation to promote the interests of people and regional areas, if granted the authority.

Currently, the lawmaking process is jointly carried out by the House of Representatives and the government. The DPD is given the authority to provide input but not play a role in any of the bill’s deliberations.

Laode Ida and Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Hemas, both deputy DPD speakers, said the legislation and policies relating to regional issues would be of a better quality should DPD members be given a bigger role in the lawmaking process.

During a round table discussion in Denpasar, Bali, over the weekend, Laode criticized the current law-making process taking place at the House without the involvement of DPD members.

According to him, the House often issues legislation after receiving requests from certain interest groups.

“If the DPD is given the authority [to deliberate the bills], no legislation requested by small interest groups would be endorsed,” Laode told the discussion.

Any legislation produced by a bicameral system of parliament (House and DPD) would be of a better quality than that made by a unicameral system, he said.

Ratu Hemas agreed with Laode, saying the prolonged deliberation of the bill on Yogyakarta’s special status was a good sample of conflicting interests between the government and House factions.

“The prolonged arguments between the House and the government during the bill’s deliberation could have been avoided if the process involved the DPD, which represents the aspirations of Yogyakarta’s people,” she said of the bill that was discussed for over nine years.

Fellow DPD member I Nyoman Sudirta questioned the nation’s commitment to adopting the bicameral parliamentary system.

“The amended 1945 Constitution has adopted the bicameral parliamentary system but the DPD has not been given an equal legislative right to help promote aspirations from the regions,” he said.

Sudirta said the fact that several laws had been brought to the Constitutional Court for judicial review indicated poor quality legislation.

He suspected that extensive transactional politics and short-term interests among lawmakers had made the House reluctant to give lawmaking power to the DPD.

In its fight to win lawmaking authority, the DPD has been preparing a proposal to amend the 1945 Constitution and has also moved to seek a judicial review into a 2009 law on the structure and composition of legislative bodies, known as the MD3 law.

“The nation will be set back if the Constitutional Court rejects upholding the DPD’s lawmaking authority,” said Hemas.

Refly Harun, a constitutional expert from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, was optimistic that the Constitutional Court would accept the DPD’s request to reinstate its lawmaking authority.

“The Constitutional Court will hopefully reinstate the DPD’s full legislative [lawmaking] authority because the DPD has been actively involved in the National Legislation Program [Prolegnas],” he said.