Indonesian government signed the OGP declaration in 2011 and established the OGI secretariat in 2012. Actually, parliament has joined the Open Government Indonesia (OGI) with two commitments in 2014.

No Commitments Indicators
1 improving institutional performance through information disclosure availability of websites that publish institutional data (organization, duties and institutions), attendance data of MP’s at each meeting, live report of meeting, the result of supervisory of the Act, public comments about ongoing meeting, meetings report.
2 Encouraging transparency and accountability availability of publication of closed meeting criteria with clearly qualification, availability of new regulation regarding the documentation and publication of decision making procedures including voting mechanism.

Unfortunately, in 2015 parliament did not make a progress report to OGI. In a meeting with General Secretary of Indonesian’s Parliament in 2016, she stated that Parliament will build its own model of openness. “Parliament is not part of the government. So, it is irrelevant if Parliament makes an openess report to the government,” she said. She refused if Government regulated parliament, because parliament has equal position with government.

I think it is not to bad perspective. According to the perspective, I hope parliament can encouraged to build a better concept of openness rather than the Open Government concept. Finally, in August 2018, parliament declared the Open Parliament as commitments to transparency, participatory, and accountability.

There are some condition that encouraged declaration open Parliament in Indonesia.

  1. Indonesia has a Public Information Disclosure Act (14/200). This law is an initiative of the DPR based on the concept of civil society. This law regulates the obligation for public bodies to be open. This law determines the kind of information that must be opened without request (pro-active disclosure). This law regulates the obligation of Public Bodies to service the information requests. This law also requires the establishment of an Information Commission to judge information disputes.
  2. Government of Indonesia signed the OGP Declaration, 2011. So, if parliament has not maximally built openness, it will disrupt relations with government, disrupt the function on oversight (scrutiny), and reduce the public trust.
  3. Parliament has strong commitment on Open Parliament. The chairman of parliament, the deputies chairman, and head of parliament secretariat are activist on reformation 1998. So, I definitely sure that they have commitment to openess.
  4. Engagement public to parliament has been increasing

Request on information

Year 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 (Jul)
Total of Information Request 321 429 880 1025 635

Public aspirations

NO PROCEDURES 2017 2018
1 Letter 4173 2567
2 Web 589 595
3 SMS 3606 1692
TOTAL 8368 4854

Public visits

There were 28,191 people visited the parliament in July 2016 – July 2017.

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There are some activities that we have been doing to encourage Open Parliament since 2016.

1. We have assesed the condition of parliament openeness

We need something to ensure that the Open parliament is a necessity. The answer is data. Assessment is needed to get some data. It is important to ensure that parliament has problems with transparency. For example, in 2016, we found that of 11 Commissions (committees) in the parliament, there were 3 commissions which not published the documents of brief report (short report/meeting conclution report).

COMMISSION SECTOR TOTAL
I Defense, Foreign Affairs, Communication and Information, Intelligence 29
II Domestic, State Secretariat, Elections 14
III Law, Human rights, security 24
IV Agriculture, Food, Maritime, Forestry 0
V Infrastructure, Transportation 15
VI Industry, Investment, Business Competition 0
VII Energy, Research and Technology, Living environment 10
VIII Social, religion 38
IX Health, Employment 37
X Education, Sports, History 0
XI Finance, Banking 16
TOTAL 183

After we submitted the assessment, parliament immediately increased the publication of their brief report. As a result, the number of short report publications increased in 2017 and 2018.

Commission 2016 2017 2018
I 29 467 541
II 14 957 1028
III 24 673 732
IV 0 161 193
V 15 396 456
VI 0 287 393
VII 10 283 348
VIII 38 317 460
IX 37 787 845
X 0 413 466
XI 16 430 478
Total 183 5.171 5.940

In 2019, we have compared between brief reports (Laporan Singkat, Lapsing) and minutes of meetings (Risalah) in Commission VII as of October 2014 to December 2018. As a result,  85% of minutes of meetings were not published.

BULAN 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
MM
BR
MM
BR
MM
BR
MM
BR
MM
BR
Jan 6 9 4 6 0 6 5 10
Feb 1 1 4 5 0 9 0 8
March 0 0 1 4 0 1 1 1
April 1 3 1 3 0 7 6 6
May – 6 0 0 0 2 0 3
Jun – 5 0 2 0 9 0 5
Jul – 4 0 12 0 4 0 0
Aug – 4 1 4 0 2 0 2
Sept – 7 5 8 0 6 0 4
Oct – 14 2 7 0 13 0 6 0 0
Nov – 1 0 0 0 1 0 7 0 0
Dec – – 0 0 0 4 0 1 0 0
TOTAL 8 54 18 51 0 64 12 53 0 0

The condition was realized by parliament, as stated in the NAP 2018-2020, that parliament website was still limited and not updated yet.

2. We have made relationship with ally person (strategic partner) in parliament who have strong commitment on openness.

We need them explain the internal conditions of parliament and connect us to people who have authority for building Open Parliament, such as the Head of Bureau, General Secretary, chairman and deputy chairman of parliament.

3. We have promoted the concept of open parliament to Parliament

Effort to promote open parliament is carried out by conducting hearings, FGD, informal meetings. We connected our program to be relevant with effort to strengthen parliament transparency because we have no funding support yet to promote open parliament. By the strategy, we can facilitate several activities related to the Open Parliament for Parliament.

The another way to promote the Open Parliament is encouraging parliament to be involved in the Open Parliament agenda at the global level. We appreciate the Indonesian Parliament for participating in the Global Legislative Openness Conference Ukraine, in May 2017; and the Open Government Partnership Global Summit, Georgia, July 2018.

Some MPs has misperception on Open Parliament that the open parliament is a condition where people are free to visit, have websites and social media. It’s not enought. Open Parliament is collaboration of parliament and civil society in building participation, transparency, accountability and innovation. Civil society is obviously involved in preparing action plans, implementing action plans, and evaluating action plans.

4. We have encouraged the parliament to declare Open Parliament

We appreciate that the Indonesian Parliament has declared the Open Parliament, in August 2018. Declaration is needed in order to build an open parliament as institution. Not just individual commitment. If open parliament is institutionalized, it will continue well. In fact, this happened in the Indonesian parliament. After declaration, the parliament compiled National Action Plans, established the OPI secretariat, and step by step going to implement the NAP.

5. We have assisted to set up National Action Plans of Open Parliament

This is the IPC’s proposal for NAP, which was redesigned and detailed by parliament. Klik

ASPECT ACTIVITIES TARGET ACHIEVEMENT INDICATOR
1. Institution Developing OPI Institution Availability of organization structure and working procedure of OPI
  1. Availability of a policy paper on the OPI institutional model
  2. Availability of the OPI structure based on the principles of collaboration and co-creation
  3. Availability of OPI working mechanisms (planning, implementation, evaluation and decision making)
  4. Availability of OPI periodic reports
Establish roadmap OPI Availability of Roadmap OPI
  1. Availability of baseline survey of public needs regarding parliament’s information
  2. Availability of assessment regarding enabling environment of OPI
  3. Availability of OPI roadmap
  4. OPI is accepted by stakeholders in the parliament
2. Transparency Strengthening the opennes Availability of  transparency infrastructure as regulated in Public Information Disclosure Act
  1. Availability of guidelines of data management in AKD and the Bureau.
  2. Availability of tools for rating transparency of AKD and its implementation
  3. Revisions of Parliament Regulation on Public Information Openness
3. Participation Improving data management process and legislation information services Publication and access in up-to-date and completed Legislation Information System (SILEG)
  1. Availability of assessment and policy papers on data management and parliament’s minutes of meeting
  2. Increasing the numbers of notaker in AKD
  3. The publication of short report (lapsing) and minutes are much faster and much more accurate
  4. Availability of public participation channels in sileg application.

 
Improvement of IT utilization Availability of IT aplication for engagement and information services
  1. Availability of assessment and policy papers on online data management and services
  2. Integration and redesign of parliamentary and information services website
  3. Availability of  applications for  participation, aspiration, and information.

6. We have been collaborating on implementation of NAP

As mention earlier the implementation of NAP includes strengthening the public information disclosure. In this sector, we have experience that can be shared to the parliament, such as how to: identify public information by MALE principle (maximum access limited exemption), exemption mechanism, public information list, etc. We also colaborated on compiling of Openness Rating Tools for working unit in parliament (every year, the parliament holds an openness rating for the working unit), colaborated on preparing of the Legislation Information System (SILEG), etc.

Challenges of Open Parliament in Indonesia

  1. Establish institutional and roadmap OPI
  2. Integrate NAP to strategic plan of parliament
  3. Maintain the sustainability of OPI agenda
  4. Establish colaboration OPI and OGI
  5. Extend colaboration with civil societies.