Page 195 - BUKU STRENGTHENING THE INDONESIAN PARLIAMENTARY DIPLOMACY FADLI ZON

Allow me to share some experiences of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia
to promote parliamentary openness and transparency. To implement the open and transparent
parliament, since 2010 The House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia has set an
open parliament action plan. The first action plan was set from 2010-2014. The action plan
contains a series of commitment to parliament’s reform. It calls the Indonesian parliament to
develop several aspects, such as code of ethics for members of parliament, improving physical
infrastructure, and creating more openness for public to engage with legislative process.

To continue the progress of the first phase, in 2015 the commitment for open and transparent
parliament has been strengthened. Therefore, in the second phase, from 2015-2019, Indonesian
parliament has developed a set of plan what we call as Towards the Indonesian modern
parliament action plans.

The action plan of the Indonesia modern parliament recognizes three fundamental principles. The
first principle provides the framework for the making parliamentary information transparent.
To ensure that framework, Indonesia parliament has initiated Public Information Disclosure Bill
which has been passed in 2008. This bill has also been adopted by our national parliament into
a parliament internal code of conduct. Under this framework, we offer proactive publication
of parliamentary information. It includes parliamentary agenda, schedule of meeting, report of
plenary, and information on the management and administration. All of these are published in
the parliament’s website.

The second principle is the easing access to parliamentary information through an online
technology. Nowadays the parliaments are struggling with an increased pressure to provide
real-time access to their information and activities to the public. In the Declaration on
Parliamentary Openness, stated that “Parliamentary transparency policies shall be publicly
available and shall specify terms for their periodic review to take advantage of technological
innovations and evolving good practices.”

To adopt that commitment, Indonesian parliament has implemented the use of technology
through multiple channels. This effort is central to ease and expand public access to parliamentary
information. For instance, our parliamentary bureaucracy management has been connected
through the online platform system. Each parliamentarian has also been equipped with a
personal blog which linked to the parliament website. This parliamentarian’s blog provides
information about the backgrounds, activities of members, including sufficient information for
citizens to make informed judgments regarding their integrity and probity. We also have TV’s
parliament and build dedicated channel in partnership with several national televisions. And to
increase the parliament outreach especially to the youth, we have actively engaged with social
media by posting parliamentary activities regularly. These online platforms system are built to
ensure an aspiration of constituent, feedback on legislative product, and public criticisms are
promptly received and responded.

182 I Selected Speeches of the Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia