REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The National Mandate Party faction (FPAN) in the House of Representatives (DPR) has urged the government and DPR to remove the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) law revision from the list of National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).
"The KPK Law revision should be removed from the long list of Prolegnas 2016 and Prolegnas 2014-2019. If it is not removed from the Prolegnas, it will create political uproar, which could consume the nation's energy," Yandri Susanto, secretary of the FPAN, stated at the Parliament building here on Wednesday.
Susanto affirmed that the FPAN had adopted a firm stance. After the government and DPR decided to postpone the KPK law revision, the DPR Legislation Body should soon revise Prolegnas 2016 and Prolegnas 2014-2019 by removing the KPK law revision plan from the list.
If the KPK law revision is removed, the Prolegnas 2016 list will be reduced from 40 draft laws to 39.
The plan to revise the KPK law was initiated by the DPR and was agreed upon by the government. It is included in the Prolegnas 2016 and Prolegnas 2014-2019 programs.
The draft revision has also been endorsed by the House's Legislation Body to be taken to the DPR's plenary session for acceptance as a House draft law initiative.
However, during the consultation meeting between the DPR leadership and government on Monday (Feb. 22), the government sought to postpone the revision of the law.
On Monday, the government and DPR had agreed to postpone the planned revision of Law No. 30 of 2002 on the KPK.
However, the revision proposal will not be removed from the Prolegnas 2015.
The decision was taken during a consultation meeting between President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and the key members of the DPR held at the Presidential Palace, Jakarta, on Monday.
"After a comprehensive discussion, we agreed that the issue of revising the KPK law should not be discussed at this time. It must be postponed. I looked at the need for sufficient time to finalizing the planned revision of the law and making the public aware," Jokowi stated.
In this regard, the president lauded the political dynamics in the DPR, in which three of the 10 factions had rejected the planned revision of the KPK law.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Ade Komarudin underlined that the proposal to postpone the revision of the law governing the anti-graft institution did not mean it stood scrapped from the Prolegnas 2015.
The postponement, he hoped, would offer ample time to the people to fully understand every point in the revision.
The plan to revise the KPK law has been viewed by several quarters as an effort to weaken the authority of the anti-graft body.
Four points discussed under the revision of the KPK law are limiting the anti-graft agency's authority to conduct wiretapping activities, to drop a case, to recruit its own investigators, and to establish an oversight committee.
The four points are viewed to weaken the KPK, due to which increasingly more numbers of anti-corruption activists, academicians, and religious leaders have been strong opposing the revision. The government has been urged to reject the revision.
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